Flock You
I’m really excited about Flock. For those in the dark it’s a new browser that’s intended for bloggers. The program is based off the Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine, which is what Firefox is based on. In fact the guys and gals behind Flock were part of the development team behing Firefox. Since Firefox is an Open Source program, in the open source world this fork is not an uncommon thing. In fact in most cases it’s inevitable.
There are many examples. The simplest being the hundreds of Linux distros (ubuntu after Debian etc) showing how different people have different thoughts about doing something, and so they fork. Other examples include:
Honestly I could go on. From the above examples what’s clear is that sometimes forks do provide a better product in the end. That’s the beauty of Open Source. I do find it crazy that this would happen so soon, however I can’t wait to see what this application can offer above Firefox. The ‘fox is easily my most used application. In fact when coming onto ANY new PC, the first thing that’s downloaded is Firefox, so it’s going to have to be something special for me to part ways and use the alternative. Any which way you cut it, this will be better for the end user, as the teams will no doubt be feeding off what each other are up to. Is the market oversaturated? Screw that, it’s all about freedom of choice.
On a completely different note, I’ve got to say that I’m seriously loving the Flock logo. I didn’t think anything could top the excellently designed Hick’s Firefox logo, by the Bryan Bell Flock logo is a good contender for the title.
“In fact the guys and gals behind Flock were part of the development team behing Firefox.”
Not true. Not a single one of the guys or gals behind Flock were part of the Firefox development team. One of the Flock guys was a marketing guy for Mozilla.
↓ Quote | 11/10/2005
That’s what BusinessWeek had to say about the subject which is why I said some of them helped with FF. I know that Bart Decrem is the marketing guy, but to be honest I didn’t check the rest of the team’s CV to check if that first bit was true. Hmm I’ll have a look into it.
↓ Quote | 11/10/2005
Hi Khaled,
We’re really excited about Flock and hope that it lives up to your expectations.
The anonymous comment is fairly accurate, however, Bart did lead the Firefox 1.0 launch and was intimately involved with all things Mozilla before he left to form Round Two, which turned into Flock. I was personally involved (with Bart and others) as an admin of the Spread Firefox campaign, so I also have Mozilla heritage. Another Flock developer, Ian, was working on the portable browser for Sidekick, which was based on Mozilla.
Additionally, we’re not technically a fork of Firefox. We are building a complete user experience on top of Firefox — building in such a way that we can stay current with Firefox updates. We also intend to fold back whatever changes make sense into Firefox… so ideally we’re all playing nice and helpin’ each other out! ;)
↓ Quote | 11/10/2005
Hey Chris, good of you to drop by. Thanks for the clarification (I’ll have to update that post then), but here’s a question for you then, do you think that not forking will mean you’re effectively one step behind the main firefox team? To be fair they could see what you guys are up to, integrate it and then continue their thing as well? They seem to have the resources and backing to do this.
And while I’m on the subject, when is it being released? C’mon already, it was meant to be in September right, or am I making this up as well :) ?
↓ Quote | 11/10/2005
I’m not worried about falling behind Firefox. They make a fabulous browser and it wouldn’t be possible for us to make Flock without it. I firmly believe that there is enough room in the vast intarweb for two top-notch browsers to co-exist. ;)
That said, we aim to appeal to early adopters and bloggers — particularly those who want a browser that works for them and supports the way they use the web. It just doesn’t make sense that getting images on the web is still so difficult. Why can’t that be done with drag and drop uploading? Why do you have to have 8 million different accounts for every site you login to? Why do you have to edit so much markup to publish a fairly semantic blog post? Why can’t the browser just help you GTD!?
So to that end, we’re building a set of tools that really personalize the browsing experience and help you create content for the web — be it blogposts, podcasts, vlogs or whatever. We’re starting with the basics now, but we fully intend to stay on top of emerging trends and web services and leverage them faster than Mozilla might be able to, simply because that’s what we’re focused on.
Mozilla also has something of a mandate to build what I refer to as the “vanilla browser”. It needs to work well in schools, enterprises and as a kiosk browser in lots of different environments, as well as home and elsewhere. Flock, on the other hand, should be used as your personal browser — the one you carry with you on your laptop or personal computer, that keeps your blog drafts handy for that moment of inspiration and also makes it easier to keep track of your friends and what they’re up to.
Put it this way: when I visit libraries, I’ll install Firefox. When I visit my brother in his dorm room, I’ll install Flock.
Lastly, on the subject of release… well, stay tuned towards the end of the week. ;)
↓ Quote | 11/10/2005
See now that’s a comment and a half. If I had a Top 10 comments of all time, this would be on it for sure. Thanks for the clarification and heads up, honestly I’m very excited about this, and I do wish you and all the guys the best of luck. I’m sure it’s going to be brilliant (expect a full review when I get my nasty little mits on it, like the FireFox review)
↓ Quote | 11/10/2005
Never been a fan of Firefox, just never really felt quite right to me. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a go but it’s probably because I been using Opera since…well I can’t remember not using it. But that doesn’t matter. I saw the Flock screenshots on Flickr earlier in the week, which on first impression look excellent. Pity I can’t get my hand on a copy.
Also agreed on the logo it’s just beautiful. I’m still trying to work out if there’s some kind of distorted “F” in there or not.
↓ Quote | 13/10/2005