Yesterday mozilla.org released a new product and today it releases another. This new roadmap lays out, in broad strokes, a new direction for Mozilla, one that I believe will result in both a better group of applications and a better set of technologies. The better product will include Phoenix and Minotaur (new names coming soon) and the better technologies will include large improvements to Gecko and a cleaner XUL toolkit.
I've read a lot of the early feedback at mozillaZine.org and at slashdot.org (and some in email sent dirctly to me or to drivers@mozilla.org) and so far it is overwhelmingly positive. The negatve comments seemed to mostly revolve around the "I love Mozilla and Phoenix doesn't have my favorite Mozilla feature" sort of comments. That's understandable. Not having the DOM Inspector or the JavaScript Debugger and other apps/features for those that need them will be a definite barrier to entry.
I asked folks a while ago what they liked about Phoenix that they found lacking in Mozilla. In light of the new roadmap, I think it's worth asking that question the other way around. What do you like about Mozilla that you find lacking in Phoenix?
update:Brendan's posted a couple responses at slashdot that are worth a read. "what is happening to XUL?" and some history.
