The word is out. Mozilla announced that it would delay the release of Firefox 3.0 final a few days and release RC2 first, due to the discovery of over three dozen bugs in the latest version of the powerful web browser considered to be the prime contender to Microsoft Internet Explorer.
On the surface this seems like a setback. Those are a lot of flaws that require a lot of fixes and it would seem the open source application is no better than its proprietary competitor, which itself has been plagued by bugs and security flaws since initial release of its latest version, IE7.
In reality, however, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I no longer view Firefox as just another browser (as if it ever was), but a lesson in how a software company should operate and what software should be.
One of my beefs with the entire software industry is and always has been the shoddy way they write and support their products and the apathy and sometimes even disdain they hold for the customers who use them. Software is often released to market and sold to the public at premium prices containing bugs and errors that are often patched at the will and whim of the manufacturer, usually at in the next release, when the bug-weary user must pay again for the latest version with old bugs patched and new features – along with new bugs – introduced. It’s a vicious cycle and a never -ending one. That is what drives revenue for commercial software companies.
Software vendors seem to spend just as much, if not more, on marketing the product as they do developing it. That in itself is fine, if the funds for development are spent on ensuring a quality product. Often times that isn’t the case. Even so, when bugs are found one would assume the developers would want to fix them as soon as possible and distribute them to users in a timely manner – hopefully not at their expense, either. After all, the customer purchased the software in good faith that it would work as performed. If it doesn’t, the customer deserves a free fix.
One of the arguments made for commercial proprietary software vendors and against the open source community is the support, or the lack of it, for a given product. The popular wisdom is that proprietary software is vastly superior simply because it has the financial backing of rich and powerful corporate companies to hire the best and brightest programmers and attend to every detail of its development. As the curator of Jurassic Park would say, “spared no expense!”
But like Jurassic Park, this thinking is flawed. It equates a big budget with big results. Money does not always equal success. In fact, the bigger the budget, the greater the risk of failure. Why? Because now the focus is on spending the money on the project instead of the project itself. The programmers are no longer writing code for the application, they are writing it for a paycheck. They become lazy and slothful. Deadlines are missed, but no worries, they can handle it. They have a big budget.
Microsoft adopted this philosophy a long time ago. Here is a company with what seems like a bazillion dollars and when they are presented with bugs and security exploits in their browser it can take them months (and in at least one case, a year) to patch them. Then there is Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that does not have wads of cash in their cubbies, yet can turn around a fix for Firefox within 48 hours. What is wrong with this picture?
It’s simple. It is all about attitude and focus on the real priorities, the product and the user.
It isn’t that Firefox is inherently a better browser than Internet Explorer (although in many ways I think it is), it is that it is better managed and maintained. Both Microsoft and Mozilla have popular products. Neither product is perfect. Both have bugs. Those bugs are discovered and reported regularly. The difference between Microsoft and Mozilla is in how they react to those bugs. Redmond is notorious for sitting on them and taking their sweet time to repair them. Mozilla doesn’t wait around.
It’s not about the money. It’s all about the effort. Microsoft is focused on serving their own agenda. Mozilla is focused on serving the community.
Mozilla will delay final release of Firefox 3 for about a week. So what? It’s only a week. When it is released it will be stable and it will work, and that’s what counts. On top of that, it will be free. You can’t beat that. Will the same be said for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8? Who knows? They are still patching old bugs in IE 7.
There’s a lesson in there.
