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Developments in Mozilla-landDevelopments in Mozilla-landPosted Aug 18, 2011 1:58 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755)Parent article: Developments in Mozilla-land
... and yet, now, Asa is talking about not only *hiding* version numbers from users -- you know, those things which make it possible to determine, as a support technician, what's causing the problem with the web app your user is aiming Firefox at -- but possible *dropping version numbers entirely*.
This bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=678775
is actually about the former topic, but the latter is getting much play as well; my present appraisal is that the concensus is "Mozilla (Asa) is nuts" and that Asa's reply is not to hear the postings from people who think that.
That can't end well.
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Developments in Mozilla-land Posted Aug 18, 2011 12:44 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>This bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=678775
Comment #60 wins that thread.
(And up to that point there wasn't a single person who agreed with Asa, so presumably it's not too likely to happen)
Dropping version numbers does make sense though, if it means using the date instead. Obviously if it means having *nothing* instead then it's doomed to fail.
Developments in Mozilla-land Posted Aug 24, 2011 16:31 UTC (Wed) by ThinkRob (subscriber, #64513) [Link]
Can we file a bug against the Asa component of the Mozilla project? From what I've seen there are some serious user experience issues.
Developments in Mozilla-land Posted Aug 26, 2011 0:06 UTC (Fri) by frabcus (guest, #25169) [Link]
Asa's suggestion is, naturally, barking mad from a desktop interface point of view.
But from a web services point of view, it is already utterly standard.
Where's the Help|About dialog with version number in, say, Google Docs?
What Asa is trying to do is make the software update process for browsers the same as the software update process for web services. When you report an error, you would just say "it is in the current version" - because it must be, because you're (always) running the current version.
You can argue whether this is a good or bad thing. But I'm sure you agree that desktop and web applications are increasingly blurring together, and stealing each others benefits. Not having to worry about updates is, for most users, a benefit.
But I think it would be better if we added version numbers to web services, rather than took them away from desktop applications...
Developments in Mozilla-land Posted Aug 26, 2011 7:29 UTC (Fri) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
> Where's the Help|About dialog with version number in, say, Google Docs?
Google Docs doesn't have to be updated via my distros package manager, so I don't care :). Firefox will never have any business (or rights) on my box to update itself over the Internet, and then version information starts becoming more interesting. Oh well, distros can always add the stuff back :), that's what they are for...
But enough words have been spilled over that change already, so I better shut up.
Developments in Mozilla-land Posted Aug 26, 2011 7:32 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Linux is negligible portion of the Firefox user base. This change was obviously proposed with Windows users in mind who are indeed auto updated to the latest version by default in Firefox. In any case, this proposal has been dropped and not much of a point in discussing it further.
Developments in Mozilla-land Posted Aug 29, 2011 13:01 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]
Maybe so, but the only think I think when I see the upgrade box is "which plugins will break this time". I started with several add-ons, I think only three have survived the last two upgrades. I expect in two months I'll have no add-ons at all.
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