[3131] in Release_7.7_team
Need to know if migration to Netscape 6 is feasible.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Tue Feb 12 18:58:49 2002
Message-ID: <QwOOkqNz0001Jgrp4J@mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 23:58:46 +0000 ()
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: release-team@MIT.EDU
CC: owls@MIT.EDU
As y'all know, I've been trying to understand what the right action
should be for migrating UNIX Athena off Netscape 4.
I asked that a Discovery project be kicked off to study this, but the
Directors and Discovery council wanted hold off and not do so right away.
In the process of trying to find out why this was so, I tripped over a
presupposition in the minds of a couple directors:
They'd been assuming that all platforma were investigating a "Netscape
Upgrade" from version 4 to version 6, that what I was asking for was a
study to do Mozilla instead of Netscape.
My understanding of my current charter for the browser work is this:
"If Athena upgrade to Netscape 6 is feasible, we should try and make it
happen concurrently with the IS support of Netscape 6 for the other
platforms. Since June is the time when people renew certificates, and
since it's currently considered preferable to fetch certificates with
one's default browser rather than to migrate one's certificates to a new
browser, Athena should try and deploy Netscape 6 concurrently with PC's
and Mac's in the June timeframe."
Work for release team:
Find out if migration to Netscape 6.1 is technically feasible, and
identify risks, and costs of making the migration.
Questions that spring to my mind:
Is there Netscape 6 binary available for SGI?
Does the "save file/hit the ".." button too often/hang browser" problem
exist in Netscape 6? If so, will deploying Open AFS with dynroot be
feasible?
Are there any show-stoppers for Netscape 6.1 assuming that the
Certificate fixes that jis promises for other platforms will work for
Unix?
Longer term, I think a strategic relationship with Mozilla will work
better for us than with Netscape. But the installed base of Netscape
software, and
mindshare around the benefits of running something that acts line
Netscape but is called Mozilla seems to be an issue requiring effort to
overcome.
-wdc
