Third Party/Unofficial Builds

[TheOneKEA]

So it finally happened, and everyone was right - the Firefox Builds forum looks a lot nicer now.

[MozJF]

Yes, great info :o)

So, let's go to the new section ;o)

[The Q]

I said this in the Thunderbird forum as well, but how about splitting them into unofficial Thunderbird and Firefox builds etc and keeping them in their respective front page sections so people looking for Firefox for example aren't swamped with several other application threads?

eg:

Firefox Builds (Official)

Firefox Builds (Unofficial)

or something like it?

[TheOneKEA]

Because then you'd have five forums in a group, not four, and it would mess up the look of the site.

Besides, FWIHS there are very very few custom Thunderbird and Mozilla builds made - most everybody is building Firefox ATM. Thus, separate forums may not be necessary.

[storm119]

I second The Q concern.

IMO...we should split the topic by applications/products type. Firefox,Thunderbird and Suite,and maybe to other products like Camino,K-meleon,Galeon (options) etc.

I suggest... in front page we have under the Mozilla Firefox forum just add-up the Third Party/Unoffical thread as well to the others products/applications Thunder Birds and Suite.

Just imagine atm in that particular thread all the contributer will post thier builds in same thread (forum) with Firefox,Thunder Birds and SeaMonkey builds,all will mix-up and hard to organise.At least less confusion and easy to find which product that we looking for...

just my $2 (sorry cant find the cents symbol)

[TheOneKEA]

That was already proposed and turned down. What we have is probably what we'll continue to have unless it gets really bad in the new forum.

[The Q]

Because then you'd have five forums in a group, not four, and it would mess up the look of the site.

What is more important - having the front page neatly arranged into nice little quad topic packages, or having a front page that is useful from a GUI perspective?

Remember the maxim - "Form follows function". Not the other way around.

As far as I can tell, OSS has as its strength the fact that it is created first and foremost to be functional. Eye candy is almost always an afterthought; indeed, people regularly lambast Microsoft et al for putting form above function. Please don't decrease the useability of Mozillazine simply to keep four topics per group!!

[TheOneKEA]

Because then you'd have five forums in a group, not four, and it would mess up the look of the site.

What is more important - having the front page neatly arranged into nice little quad topic packages, or having a front page that is useful from a GUI perspective?

Neatly organized packaging - kerz implied as such when this topic was discussed. Check MozillaZine General.

Remember the maxim - "Form follows function". Not the other way around.

As far as I can tell, OSS has as its strength the fact that it is created first and foremost to be functional. Eye candy is almost always an afterthought; indeed, people regularly lambast Microsoft et al for putting form above function. Please don't decrease the useability of Mozillazine simply to keep four topics per group!!

Who says it's a decrease of functionality?

Again, I have heard it mentioned that there are fewer custom Thunderbird and Mozilla builds than Firefox builds. Thus the new forum, FTM, will contain mostly Firefox build threads. If and when more custom builds for the other Products begin to appear, perhaps the forum will be split up again.

[mmoy]

It's probably better to have them in one forum. If you need a SeaMonkey or Thunderbird build, at least you can post a request where most of the builders can see the request.

What would be nice is if there was a sticky on this board pointing to the unofficial board and with the topic locked along with a nice explanation of what unofficial builds are and why you might want to use them and the caveats about using them.

The disadvantage of a split board is that I will have to go to two places to get Peter's information and who's doing what with unofficial builds.

It seems to me that the Official builds board will be mostly comments on the state of the official builds (problems, bugs) and the other one will be announcements of builds and requests for builds.

[gahbmwM5]

mmoy wrote:

"The disadvantage of a split board is that I will have to go to two places to get Peter's information and who's doing what with unofficial builds."

Yes agreed here, oh well I guess that I will get more comfortable with this new forum format in time...

[sasquatch]

Because then you'd have five forums in a group, not four, and it would mess up the look of the site.

What is more important - having the front page neatly arranged into nice little quad topic packages, or having a front page that is useful from a GUI perspective?

Remember the maxim - "Form follows function". Not the other way around.

As far as I can tell, OSS has as its strength the fact that it is created first and foremost to be functional. Eye candy is almost always an afterthought; indeed, people regularly lambast Microsoft et al for putting form above function. Please don't decrease the useability of Mozillazine simply to keep four topics per group!!

What's with this "4" stuff?

[sasquatch]

I think this stinks. Firefox should be kept with Firefox, etc.

If people are reading about the official or the unofficial builds, they go hand in hand, and sometimes it is the unofficial builds where a bug is spotted which could benefit the official builds. Sometimes I will scan the unofficial builds to see what's working or what's not, and Peter's thread to see what's fixed or broken. Then I make a decision if I want to try a new build, and which one based on all information taken in together. I don't care about unofficial Thunderbird builds when I am looking for a Firefox ("official" or "unofficial") build.

Maybe this is just another way to compartmentalize "unofficial" builders. First it is the artwork being taken away, now it is moving them to their own forum, next will be to just eliminate those forums?

I notice in one of the latest meeting minutes that things are moving forward on the incorporation of Mozilla Corporation. Coincidence?




That said, I think there should be a separate forum for Calendar/Sunbird as well, instead of lumping it in with all other extensions. It takes up over half of the posts there, and many on the Firefox builds forums as well. Just a thought.

[TheOneKEA]

I think this stinks. Firefox should be kept with Firefox, etc.

If people are reading about the official or the unofficial builds, they go hand in hand, and sometimes it is the unofficial builds where a bug is spotted which could benefit the official builds. Sometimes I will scan the unofficial builds to see what's working or what's not, and Peter's thread to see what's fixed or broken. Then I make a decision if I want to try a new build, and which one based on all information taken in together. I don't care about unofficial Thunderbird builds when I am looking for a Firefox ("official" or "unofficial") build.

You might not, but what about everybody else? Some of us use Firefox and Thunderbiord together, and we might have an easier time finding builds if they were all in one place.

Maybe this is just another way to compartmentalize "unofficial" builders. First it is the artwork being taken away, now it is moving them to their own forum, next will be to just eliminate those forums?

I notice in one of the latest meeting minutes that things are moving forward on the incorporation of Mozilla Corporation. Coincidence?

Yes.

And remember, there will always be http://www.pryan.org/mozilla in case such a dire scenario ever came to pass.

[sasquatch]

I think this stinks. Firefox should be kept with Firefox, etc.

If people are reading about the official or the unofficial builds, they go hand in hand, and sometimes it is the unofficial builds where a bug is spotted which could benefit the official builds. Sometimes I will scan the unofficial builds to see what's working or what's not, and Peter's thread to see what's fixed or broken. Then I make a decision if I want to try a new build, and which one based on all information taken in together. I don't care about unofficial Thunderbird builds when I am looking for a Firefox ("official" or "unofficial") build.

You might not, but what about everybody else? Some of us use Firefox and Thunderbiord together, and we might have an easier time finding builds if they were all in one place.
...

Actually, I do use Thunderbird as well, but prefer to do that search for builds or updates in a separate process.

At one point, I mentioned that some builder might want to build both and make an installer to install them together, maybe with a common theme or name or whatever. Nobody has done that to date (and I am not a builder, so don't suggest it).

It sure would be easy to get one build with the same optimizations for a particular PC (computer) from one source.

[Nentuaby]

Instead of having an extra forum in each category, why don't you turn it around and have an extra category "Unofficial builds" with a forum for each app?