timephoenix (+3.5)
20/3/07 2:58AM |
What a disaster. Again, politics ruins any chance of progress on the platform. You have to wonder if contractual arguments behind closed doors are just going to be replaced with public arguments on forums in the Shared Source era. |
hzn (+2.5)
20/3/07 5:01AM |
What a drag!
Paul please do not delete the page since it does help ... well at least until Peter decides to offer help to get FF2r2 running and with that I mean that I expect that information to be linked to the download page or the Help file being updated. What does amaze me is that such a blatant and obvious bug (same bug is in Thunderbird) wasn't discovered before release and has not been fixed. |
piemmm (+3.2)
20/3/07 7:16AM |
A User tries to be helpful,
Creator throws toys out of pram, citing a (imo) pathetic reason.
Same old story, again.
|
davehigton (+2.1)
20/3/07 7:21AM |
The old friendliness of the RISC OS community has disappeared. |
piemmm (+3.1)
20/3/07 7:23AM |
Actually, what gets my goat is you see hundreds of workarounds / how-to pages for broken drivers / special configurations for things like X11, and many other open source packages. You do not see those maintainers throwing their toys out the pram...
What is so special about the RISC OS port of Firefox that changes this? |
mripley (+1.1)
20/3/07 8:00AM |
Peter throwing out the dummy from the pram....surely not! I've said it elsewhere , he may have great technical skills but his people skills are practically zero. It's these childish attitudes that are slowly but surely killing what's left of RiscOS....... |
em2ac (+2.0)
20/3/07 8:23AM |
all above:
This is not going to persuade him to come back!
In reply to Paul:
I support your decision to not remove it, had I had a computer suitable to load it onto, I would be using your documentation!
In reply to Peter:
I understand your concerns for the platform, and I would have thought you might do something with the open source, soon to come. |
mrtd (+2.1)
20/3/07 8:55AM |
All in all this is a very silly argument! Peter, if you have a good reason why Paul's tutorial is a bad thing, why not tell us. If you have laready told Paul, he clearly did not see it as a problem If it is wrong and will cause problems, we might then be able to make an informed decision, or perhaps Paul might be able to correct any errors.
I see nothing wrong with people working together, and I'm sure Paul's motives were trying to help Firefox users to get the software working. Developeers need to be prepared to work together is thebplatform is to survive. |
Jwoody (+2.2)
20/3/07 8:59AM |
Trouble is Peter Naulls has a big chip on his shoulder and is far from a people person. He is also not a completer/finisher so nothing he does ever is complete. Its no wonder people are not lining up to help him. |
polas (+3.0)
20/3/07 9:41AM |
Its a great shame for the platform - Peter and Paul have done a lot for it - a lot more than most people who use RISC OS. However, it strikes me that Peter has always asked for help with his ports and due to the technical barriers there are many out there who would like to help but do not have the skills to boot - writting of tutorials etc to benefit other users can generally be a good way these people can contribute, but if there has been contribution made in the want to help users and this is thrown back in the creator'rs face then it must seem like a waste of time helping in the first place.
I don't see what is wrong with providing this help until the proper fixed program is available (which would then render Paul's help obsolete.) |
nijinsky (+3.0)
20/3/07 9:55AM |
Hmmmm.
Someone writes software that requires a bit of giggery-pokery to work. Someone else writes a helpful tutorial.
The software author refuses to be involved because the helper wont pull a webpage. Is PN in favour of internet sensorship? As long as it is not libelous then I don't see the problem.
And in any case the software is not finished to a usable standard. No surprise there then.
I've seen this before on RO-land. If they cant get rid of their ego's then the paltform is better off without them. I bet this silly attitude has driven more people away than the loss of one programmer ever has.
Cheers
Bob |
sascott (+3.0)
20/3/07 10:19AM |
What a very curious outcome. All this has come about because so many of us appreciate Peter's efforts to port Firefox 2 to the platform in the first place. I can't understand the attitude - we all appreciate the effort, so why be rewarded this way?
We can't always wait for software manufacturers etc. to come up with the goods, so we go to the internet, read tutorials, browse workarounds and hacks to get to achieve what we want.
Hope you enjoy the break Peter. When you return, don't expect us to be waiting - we might have all defected to Netsurf  |
mrmac (+3.0)
20/3/07 10:33AM |
So I guess this is going to be a project that people have donated good money for that is not going to be finished?
In reply to Peter:
If you didn't want people to use FF in it's current state why release it? Because telling people to wait for the fix rather than use a help guide to get a released version working is like saying.
Here is a program I have released but please don't try to use it till I make a fix.
It makes no sense at all and looks like an excuse for leaving.
just my 2p worth. |
arenaman (+4.7)
20/3/07 11:46AM |
Peter Naulls asks (and asks and asks and asks) for money for a piece of open-source software, releases it in a state that requires a fix, then proclaims he is ceasing development of said software because someone wrote a guide to get it working... What is there to say? Words fail me.
Surely NetSurf is the safest bet if this is what you get for your money.
Maybe it's high time Castle/ROL spent a proportion of coding their coding hours on Firefox, too. After all, having it available and working should at least help to retain users. |
cables (+2.1)
20/3/07 12:11PM |
The thread was an embarrassment to the RISC OS community, but at least it was only available to subscribers. Is it really in our platform's interest for a link to it to be put on a public site like drobe?
I think Peter has already won this year's Drobe "Own Goal" award unless something even worse than this fiasco comes along.
Any chance of Oregano 3? I tested it at Wakefield last year and was very impressed at how much better it was than O2. Ten months later it's still not on my Iyonix. What's going on? |
cables
20/3/07 12:16PM |
imj's comment wasn't there when I made my earlier post, but I think he's proved my point. |
AW (+0.9)
20/3/07 12:31PM |
If Paul wants to do something useful he can get it to work on StrongARM machines! |
Gollum (+2.0)
20/3/07 12:39PM |
It's definitely not understandable what Peter Naulls is doing! He should have very very strong arguments which he should tell us. Paul Vigay very friendly tries to help the RISC OS community but Peter Naulls seems to like to destroy this community. Oh dear!
Is there really a chance that Peter Naulls can take legal action against Paul Vigay in a successful manner? |
hEgelia (+0.1)
20/3/07 12:44PM |
Why are so many of you repeating the obvious (and each other in different ways)?
Is the situation really what it is made out to be here? Who knows for sure? I will not judge Peter for his action, I just try to understand. It's not just that he has the technical abilities to do what he has done, it's more so that he has chosen to do so, despite his experiences with us in the past. I'm not judging these experiences, I'm just trying to reason how he might see some things and how they may affect his stance.
I believe Peter has explained why he doesn't appreciate someone publishes an unofficial work around to get Firefox 2 to run. To illustrate, does anybody here remember similar efforts in the past to provide the original Deer Park port with an iconbar icon and some more RISC OS-ness? Remember what Peter said about it?
Is it just because Peter is an unlovable b*stard? Where's the respect people? Peter is a caring 'people' person, simply for coming back to help us poor buggers out with continued development of Firefox. He has said on many occasion that RISC OS has serious problems. One of these has been outlined by him on his riscos.info site and elsewhere a while back. One hint; how many IRC or VNC clients do we have?
Just for clarity, I completely understand Paul Vigay is trying to help which he and others certainly believe he's doing, but like certain previous efforts which enjoyed a great deal of attention on OSNews, they may not have results as positive as they were intended. It's just that this is Peter's project and I'm sure he really wants people to help with it, but it can only work out well if it's done in concerted effort with him. He's the main man in this case, take it or leave it. These provisional fixes can only be superficial and temporary at best. I won't pretend I have intricate knowledge of the project or the work involved, but I am sure most people are missing several points about this project and exactly why Peter has asked Paul to remove the work around - It surely is not because Peter is a egotistical funbreaker who doesn't want people to get Firefox running. |
druck (+3.2)
20/3/07 12:45PM |
We are currently urging Peter to make the patches available forthwith, as he is obliged to do under the Mozilla Public Licence. The only guaranteed thing to come from this will be a StrongARM compatible build, but hopefully more work will be done it by others. There are several things which are broken in release 2 of FF2 which worked in the intermediate releases which hopefully can be fixed easily. |
cables (+1.1)
20/3/07 12:46PM |
In reply to Gollum:
I've read Paul's page, even though I didn't need it - I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I see nothing in it that breaks the law. |
IvanDobski (+3.3)
20/3/07 12:59PM |
As an attempt at some balance lets take a look at part of the message;
[Link: www.freelists.org]
It's ironic that you made no attempt to coordinate efforts with me
_before_ you posted this. In the meantime, someone has made a rather
more accurate version on my Wiki, and so we once again have a situation
because of your actions, where we have duplicated information on
riscos.info and riscos.org. Meanwhile, I've been attributed with
things I didn't say on drobe, in an attempt to stir the pot with this
situation.
I believe part of Peter's problem was that Paul's guide contains errors, didn't discuss it with him before hand and couldn't be updated by anyone else.
BTW the more accurate guide is at http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Firefox but I guess that isn't news. |
mrchocky
20/3/07 2:17PM |
Once again, this article has sliced and diced comments precisely so it can make these sort of out of context and incorrect quotes, so Chris can get a kick out of it. Of course, the issue has nothing to do with Firefox, but again, I won't discuss that here, since the issue has already strongly biased against me by such articles. Email me. |
guestx (+1.1)
20/3/07 2:18PM |
It's just so "Royston Vasey" that most of the contributors to this thread focus on criticising Mr Naulls because he disapproves of random hacks and workarounds to keep the free stuff flowing to the fickle punters. Sure, if it were me, I'd welcome even misguided attempts to remedy faults in any software or documentation I'd released, although I'd want people to publish genuinely useful and factual information. That said, if I were making RISC OS software available only to see other people's contributions top out at rituals and lucky charms from a community who largely doesn't aspire to be anything more than a bunch of tinkerers, even though they may pretend to be so much more, I think I'd blow my lid at some point, too.
As for the financial aspect, I guess it's another lesson for all those people who throw money in every direction and complain afterwards. If you suspect you're not getting value for money then you know who to talk to. I imagine, however, that most of the complainants haven't stumped up any cash at all and just want to use the financial element to vaguely suggest wrongdoing. I suggest that those people either properly make their case or keep their dubious accusations to themselves. |
jess (+4.0)
20/3/07 2:56PM |
This situation is a farce.
Peter's concerns about information being spead out are valid.
However his reaction seems totally out of proportion, (throwing toys out of pram springs to mind.)
Why wasn't the obvious solution of putting Paul's work on the wiki taken? |
ksattic (+3.0)
20/3/07 3:08PM |
Peter's Firefox port comes with documentation saying that no support will be given for the software. Finding that it doesn't run, what option do people have other than using an online guide? Someone on The Iconbar helped me get the software going.
If I knew what the underlying issue was, I would gladly give a proper fix a go. However, there was no information supplied with Firefox that described the issue.
Given what I have said above, this whole argument is pathetic. I will stand by Paul on this one. |
hzn (+2.0)
20/3/07 4:06PM |
It is rediculous!
Just look here: http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Firefox - it is on Peter Naulls's WIKI. As a matter of fact he - that is Peter Naulls - mentioned it in a posting claiming it to be more accurate than Pauls guide. There you find just a few lines outlining how to create the default choices opposed to Paul Vigay who was so kind to outline the whole setup, that is merge the !Help and the choices setup. But as far as I can tell there are no errors in Pauls guide since following it does result in FF2r2 running. But there is a serious bug in PN's FF !Help since he even suggests to completely delete the choices which does guarantee FF2r2 not to run.
I asked PN to put a link to the good guide on his WIKI to the download page or to update his setup guide but we all know the answer. So I asked him what he expects to happen since FF2r2 won't run until he finds some time to fix it or update it (a simple few lines of code in FF2r2 !Run would be enough to create the default choices if the choices are not in place) or someone applies the hack outlined on Pauls pages and his WIKI. Well I understood his reply such that he expects nothing to happen except from whatever "armchair experts" happen to say.
In reply to And:
PN claims lack of help but seems to ignore that quite a few users put up money since they want to help but can't see how they can help in a different manner... or rather not have to work togetether with PN due to the way he works or the way he thinks or the way he behaves. I remember asking for a bit more detailed documentation and/or a guide which is more simple to follow to get the grips with his environment ... the reply was along the lines that if I can't manage with the info up front I might as well not try in the first place. Well that advice I did follow.
But I do understand PNs wish for more help and do wish all of us that that happens by.
|
hzn
20/3/07 4:08PM |
In my posting above the "In reply to And:" should read just "And:". The comment formatter was a bit to versatile for me on this one. |
dms (+1.0)
20/3/07 5:24PM |
Out of interest, what is the real underlying problem with Firefox installation, and why is Paul Vigay's fix considered a temporary workaround? |
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Peter Naulls told Paul Vigay to remove his unofficial Firefox 2 install tutorial or take over support or development of the software, it was revealed. Paul uploaded a 'quick fix' guide to getting Firefox 2 working on RISC OS after users reported problems installing and running Peter's mammoth browser port. Peter has now said he is taking a break from RISC OS after Paul decided against pulling his online tutorial.
