CeBIT 2009: Mozilla Shows Off Next Generation Web
The Mozilla Foundation features a booth in the Open Source Project lounge in Hall 6 at this year's CeBIT.
"Just about everyone visiting our booth uses Firefox," said Tim Riley of Mozilla. The Firefox pins and other goodies that the conference team distributed were hotly sought after.
Riley and his colleagues presented at their booth the features of the upcoming Firefox version 3.1 that should be on the market in a couple of months. Notable among them are the enhancements in HTML 5 such as video tags that allow embedded Ogg and Theora videos to be played without a plug-in. As Riley says, "This way you get everything with the Open Source browser and don't need to rely on Adobe or others." Other enhancements involve Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) providing object drag-and-drops, as well as canvas libraries for scriptable bitmap image rendering.
Both canvas bitmaps and SVG are part of the HTML 5 specification. Chris Hofmann, one of the first Mozilla Foundation employees, added, "SVG meanwhile is available in all distributed browsers, something Web developers can depend upon." He reported that new Web technologies will take some time to be adopted: "XMLHttpRequest, for example, has been around since 2001, but only in the last few years has it gained acceptance." One reason, he explained, was Microsoft's Internet Explorer whose version 6 remained stagnant between 2001 and 2004. The release of Mozilla 1.0, on the other hand, brought in a breath of fresh air: "Life came back into the Web," according to Hoffmann, who is currently responsible for special projects at Mozilla, a multifunctional role from testing to representing the project at conferences. He is convinced that many of the "features of the next generation" of Firefox 3.1 will start to infuse the Web.
According to Riley, Mozilla's director of quality assurance, the browser project puts a great value on testing: "Everyone checking code into Firefox's version control has to deliver the matching tests." In the spirit of continuous integration, an automatic build system constantly pumps out current versions of the code, resulting in around 100,000 test cases. The full-time 17-member QA team is supplemented with about 10,000 community testers that install nightly builds every morning. Not to speak of millions of beta testers.
Next to HTML and JavaScript, the tests also involve C++, says Riley, and his team uses a whole arsenal of Open Source tools such as Mochikit, Buildbot, Mozmill and Selenium.
The two Americans manning the Mozilla booth along with their German colleague Carsten Book are excited about the active interest among visitors and the exchange with other projects. "Also, there are many more inquiries about Thunderbird here than in the U.S.," remarked Hofmann, "Apparently e-mail isn't so much dominated here by Microsoft." The Mozilla team is located in the Open Source Lounge in Hall 6 of CeBIT.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 39 Beta is Now Available for Testing
For fans and users of Fedora Linux, the first beta of release 39 is now available, which is a minor upgrade but does include GNOME 45.
-
Fedora Linux 40 to Drop X11 for KDE Plasma
When Fedora 40 arrives in 2024, there will be a few big changes coming, especially for the KDE Plasma option.
-
Real-Time Ubuntu Available in AWS Marketplace
Anyone looking for a Linux distribution for real-time processing could do a whole lot worse than Real-Time Ubuntu.
-
KSMBD Finally Reaches a Stable State
For those who've been looking forward to the first release of KSMBD, after two years it's no longer considered experimental.
-
Nitrux 3.0.0 Has Been Released
The latest version of Nitrux brings plenty of innovation and fresh apps to the table.
-
Linux From Scratch 12.0 Now Available
If you're looking to roll your own Linux distribution, the latest version of Linux From Scratch is now available with plenty of updates.
-
Linux Kernel 6.5 Has Been Released
The newest Linux kernel, version 6.5, now includes initial support for two very exciting features.
-
UbuntuDDE 23.04 Now Available
A new version of the UbuntuDDE remix has finally arrived with all the updates from the Deepin desktop and everything that comes with the Ubuntu 23.04 base.
-
Star Labs Reveals a New Surface-Like Linux Tablet
If you've ever wanted a tablet that rivals the MS Surface, you're in luck as Star Labs has created such a device.
-
SUSE Going Private (Again)
The company behind SUSE Linux Enterprise, Rancher, and NeuVector recently announced that Marcel LUX III SARL (Marcel), its majority shareholder, intends to delist it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange by way of a merger.