The future of Seamonkey?

Discussion of general topics about Seamonkey
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tonymec
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by tonymec »

therube wrote:
too much hangs on these capabilities for them to actually get dropped in the near future, even by Firefox
Uh, really. You really expect FF (Mozilla) to change/delay?
Certainly they will not change. Delay, only because they'll realize they're fubared even more then they expected (think addon signing). But only until they "fix" things, so they can proceed to finish their demise.
(At least that's what my crystal ball says.)
There was a post in some newsgroup recently by some developer but I cannot find it back. IIUC, "fixing things", as you say, is expected to take years rather than days. But it will arrive… "eventually". When (and if) it does, i.e. not now, I'll have a look at which non-Mozilla browsers are available for Linux64. For a chat client I guess I'll use Konversation if Chatzilla goes down the drain.
Best regards,
Tony
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BenoitRen
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by BenoitRen »

We've already been through this once when SeaMonkey was ported from XPFE to Toolkit. While it allowed SeaMonkey to survive, we lost stuff in the process, like a sane History Manager and a sane download progress window (which was actually not because of the move to Toolkit, but a decision by KaiRo to redesign it). Who knows what else we'll lose this time?

But it doesn't really matter, because once more Mozilla has given me the middle finger by requiring SSE2 support for no good reason. Shit like that ought to be optional like in any good media player. So it looks like I'll be staying on 2.40.
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Frank Lion
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by Frank Lion »

BenoitRen wrote:So it looks like I'll be staying on 2.40.
Jeeze, Benny, you're still alive! You been in prison for the last 5 years or something?
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (attrib.)
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frg
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by frg »

> So it looks like I'll be staying on 2.40.

A growing number of websites will no longer support it and we are not speaking about the HTML5 support here. I think the current release is a good one (does not mean its error free or ever will be). After 12 years it should be ok to shell out a few Euros and upgrade the PC. Even very cheap components from greedbay or a flea market should do the job.
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therube
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by therube »

Welcome [back], BenoitRen :-).
Haven't seen you in these parts in ages.
(Last I looked, your website was still around, yep, still is.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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BenoitRen
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by BenoitRen »

Nah, I was not in prison. I just was no longer interested in contributing to the community after SeaMonkey 2.0.

Thanks for the welcome, therube. :)
frg wrote:A growing number of websites will no longer support it
Websites already don't support it, because it's SeaMonkey, not Firefox. The movement to browser agnosticism and web standards has failed. As in, websites should not support browsers, but web standards (which include graceful degradation). Doesn't stop me from using SeaMonkey 1.1.18 on Windows 95, thankfully.
frg wrote:After 12 years it should be ok to shell out a few Euros and upgrade the PC.
No, it is never OK to throw away hardware that still works. I'm not part of the throw-away society, which is unfortunately a thing whenever computer technology is involved (people will laugh if you're still gaming on a PS3 or Xbox 360).

Regardless, I can't upgrade it with a CPU that has SSE2. The choice of CPU is limited by my motherboard.

I guess one thing I could do one of these days is to setup an environment to compile SeaMonkey without SSE2.
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tonymec
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by tonymec »

In the past I usually "shelled out a few euros" after disk crashes (i.e. too late) or when finding max mem too small and/or CPU too sluggish (both of which are subjective). This usually meant a new box with a new motherboard, and then add some ram into the empty slots in that new MB. Never went for the latest shiniest hardware BTW but for a good second-hand but not fifth-hand model. ;-)
Best regards,
Tony
Pixel789
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by Pixel789 »

well, according to this
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/02/1 ... nd-of-2017

XUL, will be dead in November.
I don't think this specific date was mentioned in the thread.
I think it was all speculative up until now.
What happens in November?
What are the plans?

Also, i have my doubts about palemoon.
The project leader is a jerk, i doubt he'll be able to do the politics right.
A hint from the out side that he's a jerk, peoples avatars usually fit their personalities.
He's avatar is a wolf/werewolf, palemoon actually refers to werewolves and the config
folder is called moonchild, werewolves again. Contrast this with tux and Linus. No, i didn't deduce he's an asshole just from he's avatar.
They are bad signs.
frg
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by frg »

>> XUL, will be dead in November.

I think you are mixing this up. Classic extensions which use xul are planned to be dead in FF 57. No way they can rip xul out till then. Even if they only discontinue the classic extensions by this date I question their sanity but Mozilla is Mozilla. SeaMonkey will go the esr route with 2.49 which should cover updates for another year at least and with some backports life can probably be extended till mid 2018. Assuming that all goes as planned with the removal... If you look at e10s you know how these things normally go with Firefox/Mozilla timetables:)

Personally I think Mozilla will fold in the next 2 to 4 years when they do this as planned. They still have a lot of cash to burn but we see how bright the final funeral pyre will be and how long it burns when they shovel the cash into it.

My hope it that a fork of the mozilla code will emerge where SeaMonkey can take a ride on it. Maybe even together with Thunderbird. In any case 2017 will be a critical year.

FRG
Mouse5
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by Mouse5 »

frg wrote:>> XUL, will be dead in November.

I think you are mixing this up. Classic extensions which use xul are planned to be dead in FF 57. No way they can rip xul out till then. Even if they only discontinue the classic extensions by this date I question their sanity but Mozilla is Mozilla. SeaMonkey will go the esr route with 2.49 which should cover updates for another year at least and with some backports life can probably be extended till mid 2018. Assuming that all goes as planned with the removal... If you look at e10s you know how these things normally go with Firefox/Mozilla timetables:)

Personally I think Mozilla will fold in the next 2 to 4 years when they do this as planned. They still have a lot of cash to burn but we see how bright the final funeral pyre will be and how long it burns when they shovel the cash into it.

My hope it that a fork of the mozilla code will emerge where SeaMonkey can take a ride on it. Maybe even together with Thunderbird. In any case 2017 will be a critical year.

FRG
unless Mozilla Do the Deal with the Devil an sell Gecko to Microsoft like AOL sold Netscape Protocol to the Devil
frg
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by frg »

>> unless Mozilla Do the Deal with the Devil an sell Gecko to Microsoft like AOL sold Netscape Protocol to the Devil

You can bet that no one of the big players will touch Gecko. Personally I think at one point in time Firefox will be discontinued. Shortly before its existance will be downplayed with Mozillas PR blubbering about open web and standards and how there are the defenders of the open web and look at their many content pages helping web developers master the complex task of creating fluff and how their web technologies will help the poor to be empowered and so on...

They just bought Pocket. I expect them to diversify even more.

On the bright side ewong is ready to start build 1 of 2.48 beta. He has finished the config changes to switch to the new Mozilla distribution servers. Its unlikely that the first build we be the final build because of the new distribution system. With 2.49 already on the horizon I expect it to become a short beta phase. If/when the build system works I will ask for a 2.49 release and later a point release switching it to the 2.49 esr branch.

FRG (cynic at heart)
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Peter Creasey
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by Peter Creasey »

F, given your pessimism about Firefox, what is your opinion as to the outlook for SeaMonkey?

SeaMonkey is so fine. It would be a shame if it is neglected (or abandoned).
. . . . . . . . . . Pete
frg
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by frg »

>> F, given your pessimism about Firefox, what is your opinion as to the outlook for SeaMonkey?

It needs to find a few new developers or it might perish. With 2.49ESR it should be ok for another 24 months if the Mozilla code base can no longer be used but afterwards its gets iffy. Building on the Pale Moon code base is an option but I doubt that the PM developers will be able to enhance the backend over time. If they were able to do this they wouldn't have needed to fork gecko again with PM 27 and even this gecko version was outdated.

>> SeaMonkey is so fine. It would be a shame if it is neglected (or abandoned).

Also depends on what the Tb devs do. There is hope that we can join forces but that would not solve all problems.
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Frank Lion
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by Frank Lion »

frg wrote:It needs to find a few new developers or it might perish..
Although I get your drift, don't forget that when Firefox packs in Gecko, XUL, etc. that there are a good people around who have spent years learning to code/fix/secure that stuff, who will suddenly have choices to make - either to carry on using those skills elsewhere or to dump everything they've learnt and learn an entire new skillset.

Now, what they will do is anyone's guess, but it is worth noting.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (attrib.)
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Mouse5
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Re: The future of Seamonkey?

Post by Mouse5 »

frg wrote:>> F, given your pessimism about Firefox, what is your opinion as to the outlook for SeaMonkey?

It needs to find a few new developers or it might perish. With 2.49ESR it should be ok for another 24 months if the Mozilla code base can no longer be used but afterwards its gets iffy. Building on the Pale Moon code base is an option but I doubt that the PM developers will be able to enhance the backend over time. If they were able to do this they wouldn't have needed to fork gecko again with PM 27 and even this gecko version was outdated.

>> SeaMonkey is so fine. It would be a shame if it is neglected (or abandoned).

Also depends on what the Tb devs do. There is hope that we can join forces but that would not solve all problems.
if the worse comes, after TB52 ESR i'll just switch back to Evolution ( Linux Emailer )
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