[WEB4LIB] Re: Netscape 6 is out

[Thomas Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jennifer Geard" <JLG at ltsa.govt.nz>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 6:38 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Netscape 6 is out


>
> TD> I trust you'll all be upgraded by this afternoon.  :->
>
> DL> Not likely.  There have already been postings on UWEBD about how
> DL> badly it does with CSS.
>
> According to my favourite IT advisor:
> "The goss on slashdot is that the nightly builds are a lot less buggy,
> and more stable, so waiting for the first bugfix or next release (6.01?)
> is recommended."
>

Just so everyone's on the same page: the non-commercial mozilla.org
operation posts a fresh build of their browser every night (and yes, the
nightly Mozilla builds are better than Netscape 6.0).  Several weeks ago,
Netscape took a snapshot of the code at that time, tinkered with it, and put
it out as today's release of Netscape 6.  Everything I saw on the mozilla
newsgroups suggested that the official release was expected in
December...hmm, I see IE6 just went to a non-public beta release...I'm sure
that's just a coincidence.

Mozilla continues to work toward a "Mozilla 1.0" release that they think
will be in the second quarter of 2001; as far as I know, Netscape hasn't
announced any timetable for future releases.  It's worth pointing out that
it took them 10 months to get from 4.0 to the comparative stability of 4.05.
I suspect the release people will really want, either from Mozilla or
Netscape, will be next summer.

For the record, there was a smily face by my suggestion that people upgrade
immediately.  However, I've expressed my concern on some OhioLINK lists that
there is a grumbling community of web developers who have only been keeping
their sites bug-comatible with Netscape 4 out of distaste for running an
IE-only site, and that the day may not be far off when a site you rely on
suddenly doesn't work in NS4.


Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu