踩場

透過小奧私陸，看到另一篇討論 Firefox 未來方向的文章。我深感作者未掌握實際情況而散播 FUD，所以我做出令人討厭的事：將人家的網誌當成自己的網誌，怒寫幾百字以表己見。

Chris Beard's article on blurring the border of the browser has nothing to do with Firefox becoming another Netscape Navigator. After all, he didn't say Mozilla is going to add Mail, Calendaring et cetra, to the Firefox that you use and love (not me, I use Safari). Firefox's philosophy has always have been cutting down functionality without making the browser unusable.

If you notice it, you'll see that Firefox's interface is built from XUL. This very same language can be used by websites like Google to build applications that look like, well, applications, not a website inside a browser. Consider Google making a Thunderbird-like e-mail client for its GMail service, hosted on Google's web servers, with the speed and responsive of Thunderbird, now you understand what I mean. Another good example is Songbird, which is essentially a different XUL coat over the same Firefox core.

When Chris said blurring the border, he means something like making Songbird to be more common. Not Netscape Navigator. In other words, these most likely will interest developers rather than end users. : )

End users might notice a behaviour change. For now people access GMail, they open up Safari (oops, I mean Firefox) and go to gmail.com. They do this because they think GMail is a website that they need Firefox to browse it. What Chris envisioned is that GMail (as an example only), if written as an XUL application, what people do is to open the GMail application, rather than opening Firefox. One less redirection there and people probably likes simpler ways of doing things. And of course, that GMail application is hosted on the web, and so Firefox is just the same little fox.

By then, probably you'll still need to open up Firefox to view regular websites. I dare say Firefox will not have tons of functionality added to it by then. So you don't need to worry so much.

The Weave is interesting because, if you think about it, Firefox works like an Operating System. Weave, like .Mac, enables user to bring their profile with them, so that they can be in the same environment, wherever they go.

然後我再回應：

照 Chris 所說的，Firefox 仍會是網站（或網站式服務）之間的橋樑，只是他希望用戶用這條橋樑之時，未必一定會留意到這條橋其實正是 Firefox。換句話說，我們沒有必要在這條橋上刻意掛上廣告，標示這條橋是 Firefox。反而使用者可以當這條橋是隱形的，因他們只求跨過這條橋。

或者你未有留意，其實這些 XAML/XUL 的技術已經放到現在的 IE/Firefox 瀏覽器之中，你可以試試這個例子。我想，Chris 希望做到的是將 Firefox 的邊框消失，另內容可自成一個好像是獨立的軟件。因此，你所擔心的事，其實已經發生了，只是表達手法的問題。

這有點像微軟將 IE 的技術整合到 Windows 之中，使有些軟件可以使用到 XAML （XUL 的對手技術）。當然，我想 Mozilla 的開發者會將這個整合比起微軟做得更穩定、更輕快。

對於使用者而言，其實他們要做的工作比起應用程式的本身來得重要。如果他們只想用 GMail 寄送電郵，但要他們開一個叫 Firefox 的軟件，指示它到特定的位置，再使用服務，其實是多一層的不便，只是大家習慣了而已。

即使到將來 Chris 所說的願景，仍然會有一個叫 Firefox 的瀏覽器，像現在的一樣，或可能加上一點必要的功能。這個瀏覽器仍會讓一般使用者使用來瀏覽網頁。但使用者不知到的是，他們慣常所用的電子郵件軟體，其實是用上了 Firefox 的核心技術，不竟，整合是要避免使用者看到那個分隔。

希望這些到可以消除你擔心的問題。簡單點說，就是你不會看到分別。

在商而言，微軟有 XAML 技術，Adobe 有 AIR 技術，都和 Firefox 的技術有相似的功能。Firefox 既然是開放源始碼，又是跨平台的軟體，加入這個巿場確有其優勢和必要。這可以提供一個免費、開放、跨平台的選擇給開發者，最終得益的也是使用者。

我想，我的朋友對此事認識更深，本人在此只為無聊。