[3137] in Release_7.7_team
Netscape 6
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Wed Feb 13 18:30:16 2002
Message-ID: <swOjQ5Rz0001IWFbB5@mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 23:30:13 +0000 ()
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: tregan@MIT.EDU, rferrara@MIT.EDU, longpd@MIT.EDU, vkumar@MIT.EDU,
azary@MIT.EDU
CC: release-team@MIT.EDU, discovery-council@MIT.EDU
I have some preliminary information on the feasibility of going to
Netscape 6 on Athena:
Apparently SGI IRIX is not considered main-stream enough.
I can find no reference to an IRIX port of Netscape 6 available
either from Netscape or from SGI.
Note that although Netscape does not provide a Solaris Netscape 6, Sun does.
Note also, that the Free Software community is distributing binaries of
an IRIX port of Mozilla which is functionally equivalent, but has
"Mozilla" on the box, and not "Netscape" on the box.
Bob, Theresa, Vijay, Phil, Susan:
Judgement call time.
Our SGI Athena systems are supposed to be actively supported until June
30, 2003.
I have had conversation with Thresa who feels strongly that if it does
not say Netscape on the box, it is not an acceptable substitute. I can
see merit
to the pursuit of a simple-to-explain strategy: "IS Supports Netscape 6".
I have had conversation with Bob Ferrara who feels that migrating to
Netscape 6 is a no-brainer, but doing something else requires careful
consideration. I agree.
The Release Team members I've spoken with feel that migration to
Netscape 6 is probably not a problem if it were available onall
platforms.
But apparently it is not.
I note that there are judgement calls about what is and is not
acceptable behavior for the web browser when you do "Save As" in AFS.
My understanding is that Netscape 6 has a problem here where users may
experience a hangup. That problem may be eliminated by going to OpenAFS
but that change-over was not planned at all for SGI, and was scheduled
for July with the Athena release 9.1.
I would like some guidance here.
Who are the right people to discuss timeline, and acceptable deviation
from "Netscape 6 everywhere"?
-wdc
