Mozilla guns for Guinness world record with Firefox 3.0

Mozilla aims to make Firefox 3 a record breaker. It wants the release of the next version of its flagship open source browser to be accompanied by a record for the most software downloads in a single 24-hour period*.

Download Day – as Mozilla dubs it – will begin the minute Firefox 3 is generally available and continue for 24 hours. Ahead of this release, expected in mid-to-late June, Mozilla has set up a website (spreadfirefox.com/worldrecord). This encourages people to organise Download Day parties, to run around collecting sign-up pledges at their university or place of work, and to place Download Day buttons on their websites.

Firefox 3 is based on Gecko 1.9, an updated layout engine. The browser features a cleaner layout, better bookmark handling and more stability. And it’s faster.

RC2
Mozilla decided to release a second release candidate for Firefox 3.0 at a meeting on Tuesday, in response to the discovery of 10 performance and stability bugs. The alternative would have been to patch these potential “showstoppers” after the browser shipped. But another round of testing is the safer option – not least from the standpoint of public relations. This will probably set back the official launch by five days or so.

Last November Mozilla hit back at claims that multiple bugs in its forthcoming Firefox 3 browser would be ignored in order to meet release schedules. At that point Mozilla was grappling with 700 bugs marked as “blockers” (i.e. a flaw serious enough to justify delaying a release, or at least merit a closer inspection).

Skip forward six months and we’re at the point where the browser is in fine-tuning to eliminate the last few high-priority bugs.

In a development list posting on Tuesday, Mozilla’s lead developer Mike Beltzner explained the strict patch acceptance policy for Firefox 3 RC2. “Just because we’ve decided to product another release candidate does not mean that we are accepting new patches – only those which fix issues that have been identified as required fixes for RC2 will be accepted, and even then your patch must come with a risk assessment and tests,” he writes. “Many of the issues to be fixed in RC2 have already been patched, reviewed, approved and landed.”

* Mozilla is trying for a record in a new category, according to a representative of the firm. That means it doesn’t have an existing mark to better. The open source browser outfit aims to secure over 1.6m downloads over 24 hours.

Firefox will be available from multiple locations. We must assume the bandwidth and server capacity will be in place to service the rush.

Twitter At scale: Will it work?

Only two days ago the contact messaging application Twitter suffered another bout of downtime, leaving some users frustrated and others asking why the platform continues to suffer problems.

Techcrunch recently spoke to an individual who is familiar with the technical problems at Twitter as well as the challenges that lay ahead for the startup. He re-iterated his belief that the problems lay not with Blaine Cook (the former head of engineering who was shown the door), nor with NTT (their host) but with the early lack of understanding of how complex their problems would be.

The issue is that group messaging is very difficult to achieve at a grand scale. Other large sites such as WordPress and Digg are mostly dealing with known problems, such as how to serve a large number of pages or a large number of images. Twitter is unique in that it needs to parse a large number of messages and deliver them to multiple recipients, with each user having unique connections to other users.

Social networks have similar complexity issues, but they only usually need to route a message to a single user (or at the most to a defined group). Even so, social networks like Friendster struggled for years with technical and scaling issues. Twitter is specifically dealing with text messages, and in most cases with active users those messages are very frequent and go out to hundreds of contacts (or followers, as they are referred to in Twitter). Every new Twitter user and every new connection results in an exponentially greater computational requirement.

Some of the best web applications are able to efficiently solve very complex problems to produce simple results for users (Eg. Google). The success of these applications is due to the innovative efforts by developers to solve large technical challenges, where they have often had to break new ground for solutions. For Twitter to reach a similar point of reliability they too will need a very comprehensive, ground-breaking solution.

The source that I spoke to also commented on how ill-prepared the Twitter team were and are for their current and future challenges. The small team contains a handful of engineers, with only a person or two committed to infrastructure and architecture. He goes on to point out that at Digg the team for network and systems alone is bigger than the total engineering team at Twitter, and that at Digg they are lead by well-known “A-list rockstars”.

The problems at Twitter are often attributed to their use of RubyOnRails, a web development framework. Twitter is almost certainly the largest site running on Rails, so fans of the framework and its developers have been quick to deflect the criticism and point it back at the engineers at Twitter. Utilizting a framework that has never conquered large-scale territory must certainly add to the risk and work required to find a solution. As an out-of-the box framework, Rails certainly doesn’t lend itself to large-scale application development.

Rails enabled Twitter to be developed quickly, to get to launch quickly and then to improve with new features relatively rapidly also. But the old adage of “Good, Fast, Cheap – pick two” certainly applies and Rails would do itself no harm by conceding that it isn’t a platform that can compete with Java or C when it comes to intensive tasks. Twitter is at a cross-roads as an application and Rails has served its purpose very well to date, but you are unlikely to see a computational cluster built with Ruby at Apache any time soon.

What we see at Twitter today is a very useful and popular service, but one with very complex underlying technical challenges to overcome. Twitter will require not only a new architecture approach and a big injection of the best minds they can find ($15 million can help), but will also need a little patience from users and those of us observing.

Are you ready for Windows 7?

“Hold the line!” That’s the new rallying cry for the core Windows development team. Add new features. Tweak existing ones. But whatever you do, don’t make Windows 7 any slower or fatter than Vista.

I have little doubt those are the marching orders for Windows 7, given the tight release timeframe of 18 to 24 months plus various reports of early Milestone builds. More ambitious changes would risk another — and potentially fatal — Longhorn-style delay. Windows 7 will be exactly what the internal Microsoft working title conveys: the seventh (actually fifth) generation of the Windows NT code base — the same code base that forms the basis of Windows XP and Vista today.

Shocking? Only if you’re one of the deluded Save XP die-hards who bought into the whole Windows 7 uber alles mystique. For these lost souls, the next Windows is more than just another version. It’s a true panacea, a conduit through which they can pour all of their anti-Vista angst. Don’t like UAC? Windows 7 will fix that. Frustrated by Vista’s sluggish performance? Windows 7 will run circles around it.

Reality check: Windows 7 will be a lot like Vista. In fact, it’ll be more like an extensive Service Pack (think Windows XP SP2 and/or the various NT Option Packs of yore) than a major new release. Big ideas and big new features are what got Microsoft into the whole “Longhorn reset” mess in the first place.

This is actually a good thing. Despite the criticisms leveled against it (including more than one heated diatribe by yours truly), Vista isn’t really flawed in any fundamental way. Yes, it’s slower than XP — but that was to be expected given its more complex code paths. Likewise, the “girth” issues were somewhat inevitable. Meanwhile, the hardware base is slowly catching up to where it needs to be to support a more complex Windows OS.

I’d even go so far as to say that, if Vista were launched today –- with the SP1 tweaks and improved device driver ecosystem in place -– it would fare a lot better than it did. But hindsight is 20/20. The future, in the form of Windows 7, is all about shipping an incremental follow-on to Vista that shores up the NT code base once and for all.

The good news is that this also makes speculating about the next version’s runtime behavior a lot easier. After all, if Windows 7 is just Windows Vista with some performance and usability tweaks, it means we can deduce a lot about the product’s system requirements and compatibility with the installed base by examining performance and usage data collected from systems running its immediate predecessors, Windows “5″ (also known as XP) and “6″ (also known as Vista).

Peering into the future with Windows Sentinel
Enter the Windows Sentinel project. With nearly 2,000 contributing systems, the exo.repository –- which is the heart of Windows Sentinel –- provides us with a representative sample of Windows-based systems running a mixture of versions (XP, 2003, 2008, Vista) and workloads (business productivity, analytics, home/personal).

Basically, we have our finger on the pulse of the Windows landscape. And by measuring that pulse, plus a few other metrics (and some educated guessing), we can tell a lot about how Windows 7 will be received when it ships.

For example, we can tell right now that roughly 29 percent of current systems will be able to run Windows 7, although not always with adequate performance.

This conclusion is based on an analysis of system disclosure data (CPU type/count/speed, memory size) as well as performance indices calculated from runtime data collected over a one-month period. Of the remaining systems, 60 percent have too little memory (less than 2GB) to reasonably host a Vista successor, while 29 percent don’t have the CPU horsepower (less than 2GHz).

We can further break down the “survivors” by analyzing their current workloads. A full 36 percent of them are already CPU bound, with 27 percent of them heavily overloaded. This is per the exo.repository’s Peak CPU Saturation Index, which is a compound index derived from 4 contributing factors: Processor Queue Length; Per-process Instant Delay (a custom CPU metric derived from the Processor Queue value); Per-Process Cumulative Delay (another custom metric); and Event Duration.

Interestingly, of the systems that are most heavily burdened, only 31 percent are running Vista (which is not really surprising since Vista makes up just 16 percent of the overall sample set). The rest are running a mixture of XP and Server 2003/XP-64-bit.

Needless to say, a heavily loaded (in terms of CPU saturation) XP box doesn’t bode well for Vista’s successor. Like Vista, Windows 7 will introduce a much higher CPU burden in the form of additional background services and their corresponding execution threads. Currently, this ratio runs approximately two to one in favor of Vista: A Vista-based PC must juggle roughly twice as many concurrent execution threads as an XP PC while running the identical office productivity workload.

Chances are good that Windows 7 will, at minimum, maintain the status quo in terms of resource requirements. This, in turn, means that customers who were hoping for some relief with Windows 7 will be sorely disappointed. It’s simply not realistic to expect Microsoft to produce a “leaner” OS and yet still add enough functionality to make it worth upgrading. At best, we might see a new version with a resource footprint similar to Windows Vista, which still places it out of reach of more than three-quarters of the systems in our sample set.

Bottom line: Less than 20 percent of the installed base is ready to migrate to Windows 7 today based on all of the factors detailed above. By far, the biggest (60 percent of the base) inhibitor is limited RAM: Like Vista, Windows 7 will have a voracious appetite for memory. Today, 2GB is the bare minimum for reasonable Vista performance. Expect 4GB to be the norm by the time Windows 7 ships. Likewise, the days of the single-core CPU are over. Dual cores are a must, while quad cores are rapidly transitioning from luxury to mainstream necessity.

Fortunately for Microsoft, it has time –- and Moore’s indefatigable Law –- on its side. Assuming Microsoft does indeed “hold the line” on code path expansion and keep Windows 7’s requirements within striking distance of Windows Vista, it can launch virtually anything and still have a winner. Just don’t expect to boot it on that old Pentium III box you stumbled across in your basement.

YouTube declines request to remove terrorist-produced videos

YouTube has refused a request from U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) to remove all videos sponsored by terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, contending that most of them don’t violate its community guidelines.

Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Monday called on the Google Inc. subsidiary to remove video content produced by terrorist organizations that showed assassinations, deaths of U.S. soldiers and civilians, weapons training, “incendiary” speeches and other material intended to “encourage violence against the West.”

“Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training,” Lieberman said in a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive, and amplified voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities.”

In the letter, Lieberman noted that while YouTube posts community guidelines for its users, it does not appear that the company follows the guidelines. For example, he noted that despite rules that prohibit gratuitous violence on the site, there are videos of Al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. forces in which some soldiers are killed or injured.

When contacted, Google pointed to a YouTube blog post that said the company has removed some of the videos cited by Lieberman, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence or used hate speech. However, the post also noted that most of the videos in question remain on the site “because they do not violate our community guidelines.”

“Hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day,” the YouTube blog post said. “Because it is not possible to pre-screen this much content, we have developed an innovative and reliable community policing system that involves our users in helping us enforce YouTube’s standards. Millions of users report potential violations of our community guidelines.”

YouTube went on to say that it encourages free speech and defends the right of its users to express unpopular points of view

“We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds,” the company said. “Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy.”

Mark Hopkins, a blogger for Mashable, noted that YouTube has been “capricious and arbitrary” in deciding what content promotes hate speech or violence and should be removed. For example, he pointed out that YouTube took down a video showing victims of a Muslim terrorist attack, but allowed videos of homeless people who were paid to beat each other. A video of clothed females in Hong Kong with derogatory music towards women being played in the background was removed, while a video of a strip tease with nudity was allowed to remain on the site, he noted.

“[Lieberman's] primary concerns weren’t the usual suspects when you think of the things that American politicians find objectionable (rap music, graphic portrayals of violence, Grand Theft Auto and Janet Jackson’s nipple),” Hopkins noted.

Instead Lieberman brought up a topic that YouTube should be called on — allowing itself to be a participant in the dissemination of propaganda videos produced by Islamic terrorist organizations, Hopkins said. “If YouTube can spend millions enforcing DMCA and piracy concerns, they can take a few minutes and respond to valid citizen complaints against usage of the system to promote terrorist organizations,” he added.

Napster rolls out MP3 store in challenge to iTunes

Napster Inc., the digital music service, on Tuesday opened the world’s biggest MP3 download store with more than 6 million songs in a direct challenge to Apple Inc’s iTunes store.

The new Web-based music store will have digital songs from all major music labels as well as thousands of independent labels. The MP3-format songs will be compatible with the vast majority of digital media devices and mobile phones including Apple’s popular iPod as well as its iPhone.

Before now Napster has focused on selling all-you-can-eat monthly streaming music subscription packages but has struggled to win over the majority of fans who want to be able to transfer songs they like on to a portable device such as the market-leading iPod.

The new Napster service tries to take on Apple’s dominance in digital music by offering fans more songs without copy protection or digital rights management (DRM). Most of the six million songs on the iTunes Music store are available with Fairplay DRM, which prevents the songs from being played on most portable players other than the iPod.

Major labels in particular had previously been reluctant to allow online retailers to sell their songs without protection as a way to avoid piracy. As the industry outlook gets tougher more executives are willing to experiment or take a risk.

“We’re now moving from under the DRM cloud,” said Chris Gorog, Napster chief executive. “Now consumers can use Napster with any device,” he added.

Most songs on the service will be available for 99 cents each and $9.95 an album.

Though Napster will be hoping to take on iTunes it will try to do so by being compatible with Apple’s service. According to executives, MP3 songs bought on the Napster Web-based service will be automatically synched into a user’s existing iTunes music library if they use that library.

The success of iTunes, which accounts for more than 70 percent of all digital music sales in the U.S. has been a double-edged sword for the music industry.

iTunes has been widely acknowledged by music industry watchers as playing the lead role in developing the legal and commercially viable digital music sector. But in the last year, music executives at major labels have worried that iTunes’ dominant position might be hampering the expansion of the nascent market.

iTunes said last month it had overtaken Wal-Mart to become the biggest retailer of music in the U.S with more than 4 billion songs sold since launch in 2003.

But concerns have mounted in the music industry as CDs sales have dropped faster than expected while the growth of digital music sales is yet to make up for the shortfall.

Music industry executives have recently been encouraging new entrants to the digital music business such as online retailer Amazon.com and News Corp’s social networking site MySpace.

This makes Napster the latest name to join the ranks of recent music industry partners who might help tip the balance of power back from Apple in favor of the major labels.

Gorog said he still believes that despite the success of Apple’s download service Napster will still support its subscription service which will grow as people become more aware of it.

“We believe ultimately that consumers will be moving to an unlimited music model,” said Gorog.