Mozilla and Pocket

And so what happens is that Mozilla people use this idea for an excuse to not have the discussion at all, prejudging all inquiries as eventually and inevitably hostile and shifting blame for their own non-communication onto people who've not even had the chance to fuck up to begin with. Exactly as the systemd cabal failed in its own PR, trivial criticism could be answered with a FAQ list; difficult criticism can be answered individually and then added to said FAQ list; and the nutter who just keeps going around in circles can be told that they are doing so, and to have a good day. There's no effort wasted in doing any of the three, so any stated reason not to pony up is just another bloody excuse.

They won't answer because they don't know. They won't engage in an attempt to find out because proper answers would make Mozilla look bad -- which to adults is only a consequence of fucking up, itself following from inevitable imperfection. They'd rather non-answer to a choir of their faithful and be assured of a supportive, cheering, back-patting, "we're convinced that you did your best" response. From what's been reported of Mozilla and its innards, I'd go as far as to suggest that they're unable to think in ways that'd even remotely contradict Mozilla consensus and thus erode Mozilla's Open Source halo.

They could answer by simply following the steps that username `ewan' outlined in the grandparent comment. Instead they have excuses. Unfortunately this is not in any way equivalent to not having fucked up at all, to having made the mistake and then learned from it so as to not make it again, or even to saying that what was done wasn't a mistake at all: rather, it's at most a glib apology for having been caught.