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Netscape Documentary

Tape 17

Exterior shots

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how far do number


things are going as as bug fixes you have

DM We didnt have meeting today bcaseu Michael wanted to kill the


meeting so we

could do work which


all though was very very good idea Were holding at

about 30 or so bugs that matte for Friday think were 80 total but most of the

rest are cruft that were not going have week


to to
worry about until next The big

thing right now is uh three things Im worried about which is the


security-ectomy

the java-ectomy and in general the Mac Build because uh the Mac Build is done

its done with these things


differently called project files rather than make files and

its harder make


lot to big radical changes And were trying to do all of these

three things in parallel and its colossal and weve


just pain got some resource

issues where weve had to switch some people around Now at the same time

were to focus on those three and


trying big things feel really want to get those

under we dont
control tonight cause if feel like we have our arms around that

tonight Wednesday night were doomed for getting it in on Friday right dont

think its gonna so with those three issues we also have the things
haPPJUm
thats us right now You know Lloyd Tabbs
getting is the files
signing all
sign out

the file thing And weve got lots of problems with that in the sense that weve got

some who were $IIK


key people out sick actually signed up to sign bunch of files Im

running around trying to get other people to do that Weve got other people who

own lot of files who are are involved in those three


unfortunately first issues so

we have to get other people assigned their files uh and in the process of signing it

files we done re-review on what we did and we went- OOPS we missed

of things So
couple like urn one of em we apparently used in one file some code

out of Develop Magazine article by Brian Ressler urn Betrs is his nickname

4e is

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hes know in the valley friend of mine from when worked at Adobe so why

the call him Beakers dont know clearance from him


anything get to use his

work and credit him and all that and out of the
stuff get that
way cause thats P-O

priority zero bug until then And uh its


you know just one stupid nightmare

after another And also have the added problem that on


normally
Wednesday
nights it is
Wednesday isnt it Mac
that the engineers usually duck out to the

pool hail on Castro Street and and drink beer and


play pool eat ice cream
who_J
knows And so Ive offered like meal bounty like Im whatever
buying you

want tonight stick around and work Im being


just yourselves to death and so

you know the cruel task master whatever And well see how that works Cause

several of them got kind of tired last


night Steve and Scott were working
pretty

late so..

Is there anything more challenging about this particular than


undertaking

you ordinarily encounter or is this standard stuff

DM Well part of the standard thing is the is


fighting entropy in the the kind of thing

when you run around like chicken with your head cut off kind of thing But really

the different
thing in source 331 is you know were having to be were having to

thing like lawyers and bureaucrats and with


stuff all these source files were

having to think much more closely about the build And were making
really it
up

as we go along because nobodys ever tried to pull this stunt with source base

this
large mean its huge mean there are operating systems out there that arent

as big as our code base right Um which is both good and bad guess So thats

the hardest thing is that were inventing the as we go uh and


process everyday is

just one new thing that we though we had handle on and the right way to do it

and its nuts Like today again what reared its ugly head is how were gonna deal

with the fact that it looks like we cant give the mail and news source out because of

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licensing issues And so weve got the Netscape faction right who you know

were tired and like were being flogged its like no no no we wont give it
up

because thats easier right Now go away and dont bother me So they can get

something else done And then we have the


people in Mozilla.org you know who

have to put on the Mozilla.org hat and think for the internet and say you know this

is bogus weve got to give something out or were not being true and theyre

doing the thing as


right wbutyeu-imwtTiat balancing act isj ri ht

uh people get sick you know this week cause theyve been

working so long and people also blow up laughs and get angry which can be

fun to watch on occasion


actually myself blew up last night uh at couple of

people and apologized profusely dont do that which was


normally good sign

to me to go home think left at after 1100 last went home and


night said no

tonight slee ing hours hours of sleep and wont do something stupid like

that again

Um Tara though Im worried about Tara Shes got like and half three hours

sleep tops right now She looks uh like hell really like hell And thats gonna

happen think to the Java and team members


security as well And theyre like

critical on
path critical
resou_f/so
uh were gonna ..tonights gonna be fun

night If we dont make some were doomed


headway tonight uh think for

Friday otmea that were doomed for failure for 331 just so you

know mean the Friday day is day we out of asses


just pulled right mean

laughs we said OK we better have this much done because when you have when

youve never done this before you want to be really conservative and you want to

say we want to have this much by


accomplished that day that gives us
hse
enough time to test it and
get it
right and everything else

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Of all the people in the building and working on 331 is there one that you

would hate to see not be part of the process

DM Its Tara ara is theuh is the focal point fora lot of this stuff Cause she really

has to know everything aS keep everything in-her liand stuff like that If

there is one person dont think there is one person and thats one thing that

makes it fun about working at Netscape and being team cause we distribute the

pain lot And if Tara has to go home and crash or if she implodes slightly for

temporary reason or whatever then the nice thing about working at Netscape is

you know people jump in and fill the Gap Like one of the guys on my team

Chris MacAfee whos home sick


today hes actually still working from home

though you know groggy over the keyboards but other people on his team and

other teams are jumping in to him bases You know


help right to cover the if get

hit by bus tomorrow mean somebody will cover for me And when you think

about it mostly what do is like my big job is being busy body right is just

making sure everything is getting done Its like the person on the assembly line

that makes sure the widgets are there right And you know somebody is
sitting

there at the beginning of the process and feeding it you know thats one of my

jobs is to make sure that happens Uh Tarns job is know more


you complicated

got to be the person whos got like 50 conveyor belts feeding here and
Shes likejj
handing things off and so its little bit harder

Michael right now is


sitting up at much higher lever trying to deal with some um
some bigger issues and Lloyd right now is worried about lot of Mozilla.org stuff

and the whole process of signing And we sort of switch hats lot of times Like

you know we just play it


by ear And the four of us have generally been the ones

in the center of that mess right now

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Looked like he was helping out


saw Jamie Zawinksi in the build pit
it

little bit

different about
DM you know Jamie theres
him and said something
Yeah looked at

But you cant miss


what And so uh its true
you know
is
you today and
bet it

the hair can you Cant miss the hair

have been jumping in and


Urn yeah its been really good because lot of people

that are not their jobs


doing what they can uh weird hours and solving problems

about this is the willingness to do


and one thing thats really great organization

that You know its not my job unless it


gets done we fail so something better

with of people like that and


get done and really like working group

organization like that and just doing the mean stuff like this

another
suppose you learn lot Now if Ill have this experience ill ever go to

know how to do that


gonna do something
thats this Ill certainly
company crazy

Great thanks Well catch up with you tonight at 10

be here 10
DM Yeah We may actually have lot of the problems solved Ill still at

oclock Um Scott will still be here urn several of the other people will still be

here we may have some of the problems actually solved by then Uh but Ill

certainly still be here

We may check in..

DM Why dont you give me call around...why dont you give me call around

oclock Heres the number...

79IL
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DM Yeah this things strapped to my ass all the time too Uh 510-501-3846

So did you have pilot before you came here..

tape breaks

DM And if
you cant get
hold of me here call Scott Collins at 650-937-2350 and hell

know how to find me

You ought to sit down and talk to Scott for while Youd get some real colorful

footage

Im gonna do that like Scott


/1

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Honey Im home

So uh did you find out anything about security things

TH Im waiting for call back

DM OK so were still kind of doomed that way right

Th Yeah

DM OK

TH Ahh

DM OK so urn whats the if we dont here from Jeff by..

TH Im thinking very strongly that maybe Ill get in


my little car and go toddling well

that would be lazy will walk across the street and go to building 12 and go
really

find him and beat him and see whats going on

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DM were not getting that if we dont that data to Cathy and urn
Cause yeah if get

we want to get the rest of the thing on Windows were doomed

OK Im gonna go upstairs and see how the Mac Weasels are doing

TH And at night the icicles


go

And
DM There you go there you go Thats what my biggest fear is Rick..

TM still not answering his phone dont think he loves us


tlle5

DM dont think he ever answers that damn phone

TM No he me mail saying hes leaving


Oh wait minute he went out to dinner sent

and coming back

DM Is this dinner is this lunch or is this breakfast

TH Well you never know with Weinstein Hang on...Jeff Weinstein nope sender.

Hey if you talk to him tell him to answer my mail

DM Hes note answering his mail either

Well just sent it little while ago so...you


know.

TH It
says will be out of the office from to

DM

TH Well its so he like got excited and left early

DM Urn well he better have gotten some data to Cathy or thats not gonna get any

traction before and then ..hey

Th actually have 4.5 issue need to go over with him

DM Oh OK and then we need to get


the windows thing under control right

TM Yes Sara is busily building right now and..

DM Is she going to be living here tonight if Jeff back at to answer the question

TH Uh thats entirely possible

DM OK are you going to be here tonight

TH Thats entirely possible

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Thats entirely too possible laughs

And you know how much Im gonna want out


of this
CTH tequila

DM Speaking of that was wondering if could get shot of medication Perhaps..

TH You know um...yeah

DM Any cups

TH Are you kidding Salud

DM Smooth

Th Gimme that back But you didnt finish it

DM Huh non want you to fill that


up about half way laughter

Must have more..

DM Bingo

the cup
TFI Remember you have to drink you quickly or it east its way through

DM just imagine what it does to my throat

TH Thats what Brian always says

DM Ohyeah

Do you feel medicated

DM Retire that one OK..

Th Its dead OK so youre gonna go upstairs and youre gonna come back down

here and and will hold hands and across and find Jeff in the next 20
maybe you go

minutes OK 20 minutes

All right Ill be back

DYt All right Im gonna check in with these


guys and then Im gonna see
when they

want to have lunch and Im gonna try to keep them here and not go out and play

pool tonight which they usually do on Wednesday

TEl Be prepared to offer .1

DM told them whatever the hell they want to eat Im buying

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Til Well did that last night Im done

DM We cant expense that cant we

TH lam planning on it

when uh House
DM Thats about what it cost me back in January the Tight

remember..

TH Oh dont remind me

DM Yeah yeah

TH Please site down

what do you want

TH Uh want what want is just to figure out what our process is for uh like right

does make sense to keep the tree closed


now you guys are making check-ins it

Should we just re-open the tree whos approving the check-ins uh. .what your

procedure how do you want to run this

Uh cause yeah we pinged and said


you know look warn us before you cheek

and that has not happened

TH and if theres lots of stuff coming in basically the reason wed want to
Right

know is are we taking incremental changes to these builds you know what

whats...how do you want to handle that

wanted closed in closed state thats not open


Well to generally keep the tree

for any thing other than approved changes..

TH OK

And we should just talk about what approved change means had uh without

uh any advice from you said approved change meant your manager approved it

and you had appropriate code review and all those other kinds of things

TH What we probably want to do thats great...

And Marcus the ability to close the tree if he needed to not even open close
gave

ct2fl1
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make when we do the


TH Right think what we want to do is to sure that approve

and the bug number on it


stuff we want to make sure that people put the approver

because that way we can..

That was in the message too..

do that
TH OK so we just need to start smacking people to remember to

Yeah..so if see check-in without that..


you

and know..
TB Thats great because think Dar was getting
confused

Because she wanted to know when to re-spin and didnt even expect to re
just

we were to sit on the bits we created for 24 hours But


spin thought just going

now..

We were just talking about when do we want to respin We had some pretty

significant fixes today all..

Were not scheduled for 10 am tomorrow morning is when the next spinning

happens for Win32 at least..

Thats probably fine..

TB OK so do you just want to continue to keep the tree closed just as per..

Yeah probably until tomorrow afternoon

Til All right OK so why dont you just send out the little urn please remember to put

in
your approve buy-in bug number..

Or your hand will get slapped

TH Or you will get slapped and..

Are you Mark

Yeah

TH John Marcus

Youre doing great job We exchanged e-mails and...it just kind of got in lock

and never even talked to eachother


step

77/o ao7
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TH Poor boy is new to client hes been used to Java and its smaller teams..

Well Novas an easier place to play right now

And Java lived in fear of me so that worked really well

TH Yeah we just have to train the...OK so think were all in the same boat and that

way we know how to proceed Tomorrow morning 10 am build will kick off and

well just make sure so what you need to do is make sure that check ins are

happening with the correct information

Right

Right

TH So we can track that

And Ill let...and then youre handling the uh Mac one correct

TEL No thats John MeMulin Australia little taller...OK all right

send another
Yeah just message like
you did this morning assume youre

handling this build laughs

TH Right and then in the mean time were working on getting those machines spiffed

up so and Uh talked to Bob Moss about the acceptance tests for 4.5 right now

we really dont have anything ...um

So what do you...

TH Right now we dont have anything to run The stuff that we have for 4.0.5 wont

work for the browser parts and will completely die probably for mail news cause

its completely different The UI is totally different so..

He was running something today that dies on the first CYS thing it
got to which

was good

TH Well

was like wow this is the first like real automation bug in Nova laughs

j0
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TH So talked to Bob and hes talking to the people who are working on this stuff

but realistically we probably arent going to have that stuff before next week if

was gonna make guess on that

OK as soon as we can get the automation scripts through this bug well..

TH Were ready. .right .for Windows were ready all we have to do is plug in the

right T-File and then J-J Enser has been doing lot of work for the Mac

Automation that should translate the same...theres some additional issues with Mac

running those builds and the UNIX is big black hole right now

Oh Im not even

There is one thing we need to do to make the Windows build..

There was someone darning that the Mac rebuid is


being handled improperly

TH Are we building Mapping again

Thats what the assertion was

TH When did we start doing that Oh never mind dont want to know

Yeah but

TH OK so. .are we set

Yep

TH OK good thank you You know what to do

So well get new builds out tomorrow


morning

TH Tomorrow morning

Or at 10 is when they will fire off

So we do building the only problem with we wont get them


that is until.

TH About noon

could launch it earlier if that would help

would prefer if
you could launch it earlier

TH It actually doesnt matter at this point because it need to be contingent on the tree

closing if the trees already closed so you can jut say..

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Right so Ill..

TFI What you should do is send out mail tonight when the
saying builds will kick off so

that way people will have their..

Id kick it off like at 400am

That would be great If the installers are ready for QA and other marketing folks to

jump on in the morning..

When do those individuals show up form your team in the morning

Oh..some people are actually in at about

So if
launching at 400am would probably be optimal

If
you can have it
by it would be..

Th Right and then when you come in do quick spot check on them and then just

push them out Thats what Milan does and that seems to work well
pretty

They push out automatically

TH OK never mind

Im rendering myself useless even as we speak so

TH You know what thats our job though is automate ourselves and insensibility

OK well then well touch base tomorrow and make sure everything still runs

smoothly

Job and nothing ever works


security perfect..

And out job is to continue to screw it


up right

TH Right OK
Ill
go re-tool the launch

TH You go Bug count

Tara quick question whats the state of the universe

TH Uh state of the universe Uh were doomed PM capital


Doomed Uh the

Java spank hit but the switch


last night has not been thrown for it
yet All of the

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major modifications have been made but uh were still


doing the last make file

stuff and testing and...Saras working on that now


right for windows and then uh

Mac we probably wont know what the status of that is until tomorrow

unfortunateiy And security were We threw


still trudging along the switch for

UNIX it seems to work urn windows and Mac hasnt


very broken
is still
even

been touched yet so thats our big panic right now and so were gonna go

check up with Weinstein and see what the deal is on that Urn

tapebreak
J7r
i712 /7 c.ccf
Um the
bug count is
dropping slowly but not not quick enough It needs to
drop

faster and so theres gonna be big push tonight think probably were gonna start

huffing around and were


latering bugs that not gonna get to if we can get away

with it just kind


try to that of off to the last minute we
get stuff that wish we had

more time fort

Are you going to over and


go see Jeff Weinstein

FF1 Uh yeah Im waiting for Gramps to show and then well probably
backup try to

try and find him

What time will he be back Don


TH He should be back in the next 10 to 15 minutes

Well go with you are you to walk over


going

TH probably its just right across the street

break

I2.-

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You want to hear about the night

What was the fun like last night

Oh last night oh that was fun So the Java check in...well two big things

happened last night We threw the switch on security so that we enabled the

disabling of security to happen on UNIX And lot of that touched on files that the

other platforms used Urn in particular this one file that has all this important

information that we out and then put back


strip in Its this weird build thing that

hes constructed Urn and that was complete..it was breaking the Mae and then it

was breaking Windows and then it was breaking the Mac and then it was breaking

all three platforms so the time to regenerate build is


couple of hours so when

you do fix theres lag before you find out whether or not cross platform it

then at the same time about


workednd 11 oclock the Java team started to hit

the tree Their check-out their check-in continued until about uh 130 urn

theyre to be careful about


trying pretty their check-in and then we spent the next

and 1/2 hours incremental


fixing problems that we were finding with those

changes to cross platform Urn finally sort of collapsed on the couch about 800

Just in time for Sara show


to
up to hand off stuff hand off stuff to Urn and then

was up again at 10 to hit the


bug list And probably
thing unfortunately may end

up doing that again tonight since we only have its Wednesday right todays

and probably about weeks worth of

work

ounds fun

\N
No its not Its not fun at all

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So youre not gonna go home tonight

TH Well you know would realiy like to my dogs havent seen


mf
Iv 34Z

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