I have been thinking about my wish that Mozilla would break itself into separate apps.
Firstly, GRE and XRE will help this happen. The Gecko Runtime Environment plus the XUL Runtime Environment (XUL) will enable applications (such as Navigator, Mail, and Chatzilla) to rely on them and thus make the application files themselves much smaller.
After this happens, Navigator, Mail, Calendar, ChatZilla, etc., will all be separate apps that can install the same on Mac, Windows, or Linux/Unix. Not only that, but the separate components will be smaller than they could be now, because each app will no longer have the need to include an entire implentation of the Mozilla code in itself. The apps will be able to rely on the GRE and XRE and, thus, the app files themselves could be very small.
Given this, what will be the purpose of Phoenix/Chimera? If Mozilla finally breaks itself into small pieces, Phoenix/Chimera will have made their point: Mozilla is currently too darn huge.
In short: It's time that Mozilla becomes Phoenix/Chimera.
Posted by kovu at February 9, 2003 4:31 PM