Thunderbird too [LWN.net]

Thunderbird too

Posted Nov 8, 2011 21:38 UTC (Tue) by endecotp (guest, #36428)
In reply to: Thunderbird too by rahvin
Parent article: Firefox 8 released

> I'd just like to know why every release is a major number increment.

To keep up with the other browsers. IE has got to version 9, Chrome is at something like 15. Only a crazy person would install a browser that was only at version 4-and-a-bit - that's only half as much as IE.

Just be grateful that the browsers still use numbers. Most things now seem to use textual version names like "Ice Cream Wombat". Presumably the idea is that you can tell that one name is better than another based on some measure of cuteness or something, though that seems to need a level of cultural awareness that I lack.

Thunderbird too

Posted Nov 9, 2011 12:33 UTC (Wed) by fghorow (subscriber, #5229) [Link]

I think maybe that should be "Ice Cream Weasel", no? ;-)

Thunderbird too

Posted Nov 10, 2011 23:52 UTC (Thu) by kripkenstein (guest, #43281) [Link]

>> I'd just like to know why every release is a major number increment.

> To keep up with the other browsers. IE has got to version 9, Chrome is at something like 15.

Would you prefer that Chrome and Firefox call their 6-week updates minor releases, even though they do break things in these releases? Honest question. If Chrome and Firefox did that, we would have the exact opposite complaint ("Why does Chrome 5.2 break websites that worked on Chrome 5.1?" etc.).