Mozilla.org yesterday released their updated roadmap for their browser, email, etc. Seems to me that most people seemed to be pretty thrilled by the news (my favorite is News.com.com.com.com.com, who was probably just dying to use that "Phoenix rises from Mozilla's ashes" line. They're a bunch of hacks over there, but that's a different post entirely), but I'm a little apprehensive. Here's why: While Mozilla is certainly smaller/faster than the average browser, it still is "bloated" and "slow". Why? Because everyone (collectively) wants all the (collective) features that are in Mozilla. It started out as a great idea; a way for Netscape to escape from underneath the boot of AOL, and take their browser with them.

But something happened. Although it took them far too long to release their initial browser, when they finally did, people started using it. And wanting more features in it. So many that it started to become a joke. And now people are complaining that Mozilla has become the same bloated piece of crap that Netscape 4.7 was. And there's cute, lithe Phoenix in the corner. Isn't she pretty? Phoenix was the same sort of escape pod for Mozilla that Mozilla was for Netscape before it, and my fear is that the same sort of feature creep is going to come into Phoenix, because consumers will demand it.

"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."