Re: What is Epiphany's role now?

[Reinout van Schouwen <reinouts gnome org>]

Hi Murray,

Op maandag 26-03-2007 om 10:57 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Murray
Cumming:
> Unfortunately, I think we have lost the battle to get Epiphany installed
> as the default browser on popular Linux distributions. The Firefox brand
> was just something that they couldn't do without.

Admittedly not a major distro, but Foresight recently decided to make
Epiphany the default browser:
http://flinux.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/foresight-chooses-epiphany-as-new-default-browser-on-upcoming-release/

> So, how do the Epiphany developers see their role now? Is Epiphany now
> just a way to show what Firefox should do, or are you motivated by the
> needs of the few users who do use it, via the few distros that default
> to it?

I speak only for myself, but the main reason I'm continuing to
contribute to the project is that I want Epiphany to be the perfect
browser for the GNOME desktop. Epiphany isn't perfect, but it comes a
hell of a lot closer than Firefox does. 

Did you know that the majority of our bug-buddy generated bug reports
comes from Ubuntu users? In a strange way, this makes me glad Epiphany
isn't the default browser there. :P

> Personally, I think it's time instead to fix Firefox as much as
> possible, as difficult as that is.

I believe the packagers of the various distros have their hands full
with fixing Firefox. I don't think it's reasonable to expect Epiphany
developers to just throw in the towel and go work on Ff. Are you asking
the same thing from the people who work on Camino, for instance?

Also note that Christian has contributed a sizeable number of patches to
the Mozilla codebase already.

regards,

-- 
Reinout van Schouwen
http://vanschouwen.info/