Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Will democracy kill Firefox?

Mozilla has been talking about the next major revision of Firefox, version 4.0, which is slated for release some time in 2010. A series of ideas have come to light, including a "ribbonized" browser, using similar user interface ideas as Microsoft Office 2007. ComputerWorld reports that "users blasted the idea" and that Mozilla backed away from that terminology.

The great power behind Firefox is that it was created by a group of independent developers who were not bound by the requirements, biases, and pre-conceived notions of a major public company. But when a vocal minority hijacks the creative process, then those developers lose their independence. They are now being led by that minority and not by their own creativity. Their creativity may or may not produce the best ideas every time, but it will produce the most innovation. I suspect that the superiority that Firefox enjoys will begin to fade as the developers listen more to the voice of the "people" than they do to their own crazy thoughts.

Here is the Mozilla's Firefox Roadmap ...
Firefox in 2010

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