8 ms·

I can understand why Mozilla feel threatened by Chrome's growth but why the use of major version numbers for what could have very easily been 4.1 ?

Meai 15y ago
Marketing reasons, tech blogs don't write about minor version increments.
- glassx 15y ago
  That's the best explanation I've heard so far, makes a lot of sense!
- wvenable 15y ago
  Sadly, there isn't much to write about because there isn't anything new here. As far as I can tell, tech blogs don't write about Chrome versions anymore -- I don't even know what number they are up to.
  - mark_story 15y ago
    12 is the current release, and 13 should be ready soon. One thing chrome has done really well is smooth and seamless upgrades, this helps them move things forward and people don't notice the version numbers crawl up.
    - Osiris 15y ago
      The dev channel is already up to 14.
  - azakai 15y ago
    Tech blogs most certainly do mention Chrome versions. For example, Ars Technica and TechCrunch did so for the last Chrome release. The theory that people will start ignoring versions has not yet been proven. It still might though.
lvh 15y ago
I wish the lesson learned from Chrome was that version numbers don't matter. I think it's unfortunate that some people have drawn the exact opposite conclusion.
- DasIch 15y ago
  Exactly. I hope in the future we don't think about whether you are running version X or Y but whether you run the stable or unstable update channel. It's not like your users really give a fuck about version numbers.
wmf 15y ago
They're going to make four releases a year, so there will never be another major release. Sticking with the old numbering scheme would result in "deflated" version numbers like 4.39.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  Releases will actually be every six weeks (about nine times per year) starting with Firefox 6: https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease
melling 15y ago
It's the same release model as Chrome. Chrome doesn't go from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3... It's a time boxed release. 4-6 times a year you get an automatic upgrade and the version number is increased. They could have chosen the smaller increment like 10.01, 10.02, ... but then we would never have a major upgrade, and I think humans prefer the major upgrades numbers. In reality, it's just a number. They could have started with 3.14 and added the numbers of Pi, but that's already been done.
- mturmon 15y ago
  The expanding-decimal notation is very appropriate for TeX, because its implementation is just converging to the behavior specified in the TeXbook (i.e., pi), not adding features.
sid0 15y ago
Because every release of Firefox could potentially break APIs.

Meai 15y ago

Marketing reasons, tech blogs don't write about minor version increments.

glassx 15y ago
That's the best explanation I've heard so far, makes a lot of sense!
wvenable 15y ago
Sadly, there isn't much to write about because there isn't anything new here. As far as I can tell, tech blogs don't write about Chrome versions anymore -- I don't even know what number they are up to.
- mark_story 15y ago
  12 is the current release, and 13 should be ready soon. One thing chrome has done really well is smooth and seamless upgrades, this helps them move things forward and people don't notice the version numbers crawl up.
  - Osiris 15y ago
    The dev channel is already up to 14.
- azakai 15y ago
  Tech blogs most certainly do mention Chrome versions. For example, Ars Technica and TechCrunch did so for the last Chrome release. The theory that people will start ignoring versions has not yet been proven. It still might though.

lvh 15y ago

I wish the lesson learned from Chrome was that version numbers don't matter. I think it's unfortunate that some people have drawn the exact opposite conclusion.

DasIch 15y ago
Exactly. I hope in the future we don't think about whether you are running version X or Y but whether you run the stable or unstable update channel. It's not like your users really give a fuck about version numbers.

wmf 15y ago

They're going to make four releases a year, so there will never be another major release. Sticking with the old numbering scheme would result in "deflated" version numbers like 4.39.

mbrubeck 15y ago
Releases will actually be every six weeks (about nine times per year) starting with Firefox 6: https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease

melling 15y ago

It's the same release model as Chrome. Chrome doesn't go from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3... It's a time boxed release. 4-6 times a year you get an automatic upgrade and the version number is increased. They could have chosen the smaller increment like 10.01, 10.02, ... but then we would never have a major upgrade, and I think humans prefer the major upgrades numbers. In reality, it's just a number. They could have started with 3.14 and added the numbers of Pi, but that's already been done.

mturmon 15y ago
The expanding-decimal notation is very appropriate for TeX, because its implementation is just converging to the behavior specified in the TeXbook (i.e., pi), not adding features.

sid0 15y ago

Because every release of Firefox could potentially break APIs.