[Info-vax] CPQ AXPVMS CSWB V1.7-11 vs. SWB-OPENVMS-ALPHA-V1112

[Dirk Munk]

helbig at asclothestro.multivax.de (Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)) wrote:
> In article <6f9bc$5513d4b4$5ed4324a$19356 at news.ziggo.nl>, Dirk Munk
> <munk at home.nl> writes:
>
>> Make no mistake, upgrading cswb to the present Seamonkey 2.33.1 level is
>> a daunting task, and it will take enormous resources.
>
> While I think that VMS needs a modern web browser, I don't know if
> porting some common web browser to VMS would be the best idea.  In order
> to be really useful, all or at least many of the various plugins would
> also need to be ported.  I also have no need for a browser which can
> read newsgroups, or email, or whatever.  A lean-and-mean but modern web
> browser would seem to be the way to go.
>

cswb used to be based on Mozilla. The Mozilla developers decided to 
split their browser in a separate browser (Firefox) and e-mail client 
(Thunderbird) to save memory. The reality was that the combination of 
these two programs took more memory than the previous Mozilla browser, 
since both programs used many of the same components (like the rendering 
engine). Furthermore some of the developers complained that the Firefox 
people didn't test their code well enough. So they restarted the Mozilla 
browser development and called it Seamonkey. Never the less, Firefox and 
Seamonkey are very closely related and share development.

When VMS engineering announced that cswb would also be based on Firefox, 
I (and perhaps others) pointed them to Seamonkey as the more natural 
candidate for cswb.

The mail end newsreader part of Seamonkey are very mature, it is the 
browser component that needs constant updating. And please keep in mind 
that Seamonkey is an open source project with many developers.

So I doubt if there is any need to change to another browser.