Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Boris,

If you had your pick of things to work on within the Mozilla codebase (and no other obligations), what would you spend your time on? Would you be refactoring, fixing, or adding new features?

Boris,
You and very few developers are working on the intricate, complex mechanisms of gecko and generally keeping a low profile among all Mozilla developers. Have you ever thought on going out from the dark engine room and join to "star" developers?

Boris,

Could you tell us about yourself, and your work/life away from Mozilla?

What are some of the suckiest things about the mozilla project? How do you think those things could be improved?

Boris, I know you speak russian. Were you born in Russia (if yes, where) or your parents are from there.

Are you getting paid to work on Gecko? If not - why aren't MozCorp paying you?

In all the years that I've seen bz in bugzilla and other places I've always wondering what inspires him to put so much time and effort into the various projects the Foundation has?

1) What do you enjoy working on the most in Mozilla?
2) What do you find the hardest challenge when working on Mozilla?
3) Where do you think Mozilla, etc. should improve the most on both a short-term and long-term basis?

*By 'Mozilla' I do mean Gecko layout engine plus the whole platform.

So Boris, what's it feel like having the coolest initials possible (BZ)?

What's an obscure bit of code you've worked on that you're really proud of, but no one would ever appreciate or even notice?

Of course, we might not understand what it is, but at least you can brag to us about it anyways. ;)

What are long-term plans for Mozilla and Firefox after releasing Firefox 3 with Gecko 1.9?

Are there any features you'd *like* to implement, except the spec hasn't been written yet?

How much of your time is spent on basic triage and other such things that anyone could do?

As a 5-second estimate, what percent of the gecko codebase could we get rid of if we didn't need to work with all the invalid web pages on the internet, only the valid ones?

Hi

FF sparked the browser wars, and and my favourite new thing is tabbed browsing. I guess it is standard now.

To me as a very end user, the browsers are starting to look the same.

1. So how do you think FF is different from the other browsers?
2. Whats the difference between a well tuned, personalized IE, FF and Opera?
3. To me tabs changed the world (plus all the safety babble, but who really cares). But whats the next paradigm in browsers? Will it be gecko-related or what do you think.

Kind regards

Frederik Hoelge

I understand that most devs don't actually use firefox, they use seamonkey instead. Could you explain why this is, and whether this has a negative effect on the firefox project at all.

If there's three easy tasks (things you can do without being an insanely motivated and competent layout hacker) you wish every user of gecko-based browsers would do to give back to the project, what would those be?

Oh, and another one: if you could clone one developer other than yourself, dbaron and roc, who would it be? :)

Oh, and another one: if you could clone one developer other than yourself, dbaron and roc, who would it be? :)

borris, do you like me? yes or no

*crosses fingers*

Borris, So whos name did you take over? :P i googled your name and came up with a bunch of results, is that all you?

How well architectured would you say Gecko is? What are its stengths, and what are its limitations? What things need to be fixed/improved but keep getting put off? (I'd love to help with these but am currently too busy with my job).

How on earth do you have time to pursue a physics PhD *and* do so much for Gecko?
(I majored in physics myself so I know how all-encompassing it is!)

How would you say the Mozilla project has matured over the years? It seems that with the establishment of the Mozilla Foundation & Corp., the improved documentation through the MDC, the mass marketing through SFX, the improved communication with the new newsgroups, the addition of unit testing, the huge expansion in manpower, etc., that it keeps flourishing more and more!

Boris.. Your name comes last in the credits page on firefox'es "About window" . What do you think on this?

Boris What parts of gecko could be optimized ?

As a side note I would like to thank you for the great job you are doing.

Boris: I see you have joined DBaron on work on the reflow refactoring branch. Do you think it will land by 1.9 (fx3) or later? How do you feel about this work? (I know you had reservations about table performance.)

Two things:
1. How did you first get involved with programming.
2. How did you get involved with the Mozilla project?

Boris,

I've just procured some venture capital funding to start a business built off the Mozilla backbone. Where is a good place to find some talented developers with Mozilla experience? This is a good chance to earn a nice salary and a great equity piece from a well funded Silicon Valley start up.

Thanks for your help,
Brad Crisp
(415) 828-3842

I wonder what OS/apps/tools you use for developing (Mozilla) software. Which of those do you spend most time using and/or see as indispensable.