Hooligan
You are completely wrong in what you are saying. FF 4 port could attract new users. How this can be denied is beyond me.. obviously nothing "commercial" will come from the platform.. (and by "commercial" i think you mean "industrial" )
I dont think that the friedens are able to make a really usable and stable firefox, same as other platforms have.they can maybe hold some more OS4 Fans by giving hope of a firefox.OS4 is far behind, and when there was not the big firefox announce, then only OS4 OWB can not hold users on OS4 i think.
I never see from the friedens a rock solid and complete program or game Port mainted they do in their free time.Can you tell me 1 ?
on amigaworld this was explain more.here is a link.
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=29160&forum=2&start=40&viewmode=flat&order=0#499600the friedens begin before OWB silent a firefox port(the amizilla was opensource and work too a little), it work a little on OS4, they fail to get it stable, and Andrea take over firefox.He fail too to make it stable and he deicde to do OWB.
then we can see since OWB for MOS have more features as OS4 OWB, suddenly they do a big announce that a firefox should come and collect money for it.
but i see this only as a poker trick, so people inverst money in OS4 instead of other systems.
now it seem near 2 years ago and OS4 still have no stable working firefox Port.
and if somebody announce alone a closed source firefox is not very good moral.many people have spend work in firefox, that it is easy portable to other platforms for free.the amizilla sources were here
I dont know any other than friedens that make out of this firefox work a closed source ripoff
If the friedens can compile it since long time, but it not run stable show me that something is bad in OS4 or are not able to do that.if a OS dev really like to use a firefox on his OS and decide to do a Port, it cant take so long time in compileable but unstable phase.
I only see in my experience, when can compile a Unix program, it run normaly stable.
remember, those portable programs are written, to use very few OS functions, so there need not much functions for AOS add.
remember also.this programs are written that a user can compile the program and when it compile the user can be sure, that the program work in same way stable as on other platforms.
but when you look on OS4 you see always long develop time.
remember how fast Blender for MOS was here and if i remember correct MOS have a actual 2.5 blender now.
On OS4 dev go slow and blender is old.
same happen with firefox.
so wy should OS4 attract non OS4 Fans, when they have no actual firefox...
I see the OS4 firefox only as a teaser that users leave not OS4 and spend money in other systems.....
EDIT:
I write this post with a firefox 5 Final.I update it some weeks.i dont see wy i should use firefox 4.firefox 5 is tell as faster....
EDIT2:
and if a actual port can not do with a simple new compile, or in at least 1-2 hours of work, then the Port is really bad.
and this happen on very much OS4 Ports, so no OS4 user can simple compile newest sources and it work stable.So many OS4 Ports are outdate.
The updates of Linux distributions, are not done from developers, they are done from users, or automatic
when see the MOS OWB, this is a good port, because it can update to newest webkit core.
and when remember MOS OWB is much more amiga specific as timberwolf and also MOS have much less Unix in core as OS4.
So in theory OS4 port must be faster, but it seem the opposite is true