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Mozilla To Remove User-Facing Firefox Version Numbers
MrSeb writes "A great collective gasp issued from tuned-in Firefox fans when Mozilla announced that it was switching to a Chrome-like release schedule for its browser. Now Mozilla wants to take things one step further and remove Firefox version numbers entirely — from the user-facing parts of the browser, anyway."
You can see the Bugzilla entry for this change, and keep up on Mozilla's reasoning and discussion through a thread on the mozilla.dev.usability newsgroup. Mozilla's Asa Dotzler explained, "We're moving to a more Web-like convention where it's simply not important what version you're using as long as it's the latest version. ... The most important thing is confidence that they're on the latest release. That's what the About dialog will give them."
Someone needs to let them know that they have a huge base of very useful, non-trivial plug-ins that people actually use, and they tend to break at least some of them with every update. We're still stuck on 3.6 waiting for the plug-ins to catch up because frankly they're more important to us than FF itself. And now the new hotness is your addons will just start being continuously breakable at any time?
That's the problem here. Firefox's ever changing APIs which are always breaking add-ons. The Chrome add-on API is much more limited and as such doesn't need to change as frequently or as drastically. How Firefox thinks they're going to succeed by becoming a crappier version of Chrome is beyond me.
Moz devs: "No, no. We need an add-on that shows the version number. Someone will write it."
User: "What version of FF is that add-on compatible with?"
Moz devs: "Yeah about that....fuck you."
"I've found this bug in Firefox ..."
"Do you run the latest version?"
"I don't know. I'm running the version my distro gives me."
"So which one is it?"
"I don't know. It won't tell me."
"Please update to the latest version."
"Well, I already have the latest version my distro gives me. If this is actually the latest version, I have no idea."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Why does Mozilla keep treating Firefox like it's something they need to apologize for? Firefox has the best add-ons out there, hands down. And it's been around for years. Why are they acting like Chrome and others are setting the standards now? Why do they act like they're in some kind of pissing contest with Google? Google is the one with something to prove here, not Mozilla.
Just knock it off and stick to your strengths.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm going to start using his name for boneheaded changes done for "me too" reasons and decision by committee.
"Man, T-Mobile really Dotzler'd their unlimited plan."
I'm not so sure I'm entirely keen on this.
From an IT perspective, it's helpful to know what versions people are running. And, from a practical perspective, who the heck updates every single day?
This is like agile development and continuously running the steaming build from last night ... it seems to completely violate any notion of a tested, supportable version of software, and turns it into a thing that is completely difficult to nail down. It's just a constantly evolving piece of software. So if something was broken for a day or so, you'll never really know WTF it was.
Hell, having done QA and the like ... the version of the browser you're running is part of the stuff you need to know so you know what you support. You can't even begin to say your software supports Firefox if you can't say anything more than "well, whatever Firefox looked like in January, we know it works on that".
I've dealt with a vendor who pretty much does constant releases of their software (several times/week), and their idiot support people mostly won't listen to you until you're running the latest version. It takes me several weeks to promote a version through my environments to do testing and get approvals, and you think my production instance is running the steaming turd you released on Friday?? How do you expect I've managed to do that? By having no control whatsoever as to what is deployed?
I'm pretty sure that for some organizations, this is going to make it really difficult to use Firefox. I'm pretty sure that in at least one or two places I've worked, this would be a complete non-starter.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Caller: "My computer will not boot into Windows"
Support: "What version of Windows are you running?"
Caller: "Windows"
Support: "But what version of Windows are you running?"
Caller: "Windows"
Support: "..."
Could someone please post references to the relevant standards Firefox will comply with
RFC 9.402.001: Dicking around with vesion numbers and GUI behavior in lieu of performing actual work
Do not blame Mozilla because addon creators are too lazy or don't care enough to update their addons properly
But I do blame Mozilla for starting down the path of a rapid-release cycle that is unneeded and unwanted by Firefox users. I do not blame the addon developers if they choose not to participate in the egregiously inane rapid-release cycle that Firefox is using.
The root problem is not with the addon developers, no matter how much you try to deflect the issue.
The root problem is the foolish and resource-wasteful rapid-release cycle that Firefox has engaged.
Do not blame Mozilla because you are too lazy or don't care enough to unzip the addon, open the config file, and change the max version number yourself.
The non-technical end user should never - ever - be told to jump through these hoops.
The user doesn't understand the rules for development or the relationship between the developer and Mozilla. They only know that the Firefox browser has disabled an extension they need.
This is a bigger problem for web developers IMO. How am I supposed to take bug reports? Web developers typically have to support just about any version released in the last 5 years or so to be safe. How am I supposed to do that now?
The only solution I see is to just not support Firefox, then allow clients to pay the development costs associated with supporting it. Just the process of taking bug reports will be hours of endless run-arounds trying to figure out what version I can duplicate some random idiosyncrasy in.
FanFictionRecs.net
And those guys still stuck in Internet Explorer 6 or whatever from 1999. You want it to work? Don't write to a browser version, write to a standard. I LIKE IT that it will be impossible to write for a browser version. I want a standards compliant browser, not version 12.345.2-19 of a browser and memorization of which sites require -20 and with can't work on anything newer than -18.
You think that browsers are all magically going to be standards-compliant just because version numbers are removed?
You think web developers *like* developing around browser idiosyncrasies and coding conditionally to specific versions? They do it because the HAVE TO.
You think every organization is going to allow all their machines to do automatic, arbitrary versioning of the browsers they allow their users to run?
Maybe you should get your head out of your ass.
The problem is with Mozilla, and every other open source developer who thinks their way is best and to hell with the users and add-on developers. An established user base requires stability and consistency, not this months idea of what a web browser should look like. Sure, let users customize and tweak if they want to, but leave the underlying experience the same.
The Slashdot crowd may be vocal and anti the new Firefox, but the Mozilla developers need to sit up and take note. The vast majority of their current user base don't care enough to complain - they just switched to Chrome or IE. A significant number of friends and family who I converted to Firefox over the years have switched to Chrome in the past six months.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.