6 ms·

The problem I see with this complaint is what "End of Life" means in corporate IT. What it boils down to in practical terms is that the vendor no longer is avai

by synnik 15y ago

The problem I see with this complaint is what "End of Life" means in corporate IT. What it boils down to in practical terms is that the vendor no longer is available for support calls. We continue to run many EOL apps because of these kinds of issues -- we know the apps are stable for our usage of them, and it is a low risk that we would have needed vendor support anyway. We make an explicit decision to accept that risk So this is technical impact, but really it is a risk management issue.

bradleyland 15y ago
The FF4 EOL announcement has a bit more impact than that. It has been announced that FF4 will not received security updates. This means that if you deploy FF4 in your enterprise, you'll not only be committing to software without support, you'll have internet-facing software that contains published vulnerabilities (as they appear). That's just unacceptable. Browser vendors would do well to adopt a release strategy that is similar to Ubuntu's model. You have a churn of releases with a periodic LTS release that will receive security patches for a longer term. The key here is understanding that there is some middle ground. The "release often, period" method of software development is attractive to a lot of us individually, but it's nearly impossible to plan for when you manage hundreds of PCs per tech support staff member. Providing a consistent LTS release schedule would at least give corporations the ability to plan.
- dpark 15y ago
  Corporations don't want LTS. They want RidiculouslyLTS. Ubuntu's LTS releases are supported for 3 years. IE 6 is now almost 10 years old. This is what corporations want. They want to install software and forget about it for a decade. This is not a realistic model for a browser. Even 3 years is not very realistic. 3 years means running Firefox 3.0 now, in June 2011. Sure, some people do it, but it's not a great idea for many reasons. When you're looking at Microsoft Word, expecting long-term support makes sense. It's shrink-wrapped software and upgrading is a big ordeal. You have to upgrade everyone at once, or someone's going to (repeatedly and consistently) send out docx files to coworkers who cannot open them. It can take a lot of time and money to upgrade everyone. Browsers are (or should be) different. The web is continually evolving. New exploits pop up fairly often. Regular upgrades are necessity for security and functionality, so upgrading a browser should be a minor, easy thing, and it should happen frequently. The problem is not the lack of support from Mozilla, but the expectation from corporations that browsers should be treated like Word processors.
  - bradleyland 15y ago
    "Corporations don't want LTS. They want RidiculouslyLTS." Sure they do, but they also want 100% tax exemption, employees that will work 80 hours for 40 hours pay, and $0 fire and theft insurance. Companies want lots of stuff they don't get :) My point is that it's not black and white unless Mozilla chooses to make it that way. Right now, it's white. For Mozilla to say: "Infinite incremental release is the way forward" is to say, "We don't care about your ability to plan releases in any way shape or form." That's pretty black & white. Any commitment to a release schedule would, at least, give them the ability to plan. I agree that web browsers are not synonymous with word processing software, but the expectation that large corporations will simultaneously adopt web based technologies while throwing out decades of change-management process is just naivety at it's finest. Large organizations benefit from economies of scale. This means reduced costs. This means one IT manager per five hundred PCs. This means you can't roll out software willy-nilly and expect your organization to stand. Any in-roads Mozilla gained with corporations will be quickly squandered if they stick to this strategy. Again, I agree that the old pattern is not what we need, but this is upheaval, and that's not what works at corporations.
    - dpark 15y ago
      Exactly, companies want a lot of stuff, but that doesn't mean they should get it. > My point is that it's not black and white unless Mozilla chooses to make it that way. Right now, it's white. For Mozilla to say: "Infinite incremental release is the way forward" is to say, "We don't care about your ability to plan releases in any way shape or form." That's pretty black & white. Any commitment to a release schedule would, at least, give them the ability to plan. Asking for a release timeline and asking for 3 years of support on a dead branch are entirely separate things. It's not unreasonable to ask the Mozilla keep users informed of the release schedule (don't they already do this?), but asking them to support an old version for 3 years seems silly. It takes a lot of manpower and there's no value in it for probably 95% of their customers. > I agree that web browsers are not synonymous with word processing software, but the expectation that large corporations will simultaneously adopt web based technologies while throwing out decades of change-management process is just naivety at it's finest. I would say it's practical, not naive. If you want a browser that allows you to stagnate while enjoying long-term support, then either start paying someone for support, or start using IE. You agree that web browsers and word processors are different, so why should Mozilla bend over backwards to allow corporations to try to treat them the same? > Large organizations benefit from economies of scale. This means reduced costs. This means one IT manager per five hundred PCs. This means you can't roll out software willy-nilly and expect your organization to stand. Any in-roads Mozilla gained with corporations will be quickly squandered if they stick to this strategy. Sure, so don't roll out willy-nilly. Test and then roll out, just as they do now. But instead of rolling out 4.1, roll out 5.0. I don't understand what the big issue is. I'm sure it's a bit more work if there's a breaking change, but frankly you're going to have to deal with those breaking changes eventually unless you're going to stick with the same browser for years (let's call this the IE6 model). You just deal with them incrementally rather than in one massive painful push. Frankly the incremental approach sounds less painful for everyone involved. We're talking about corporations demanding that a free product meet their antiquated needs. There's no grounds for the demand. It reflects their broken rollout policies, not a deficiency on the part of Mozilla. Maybe if it takes you several months to approve a browser rollout, that's your real problem. And let's be honest, a lot of this is just baseless fear. We're talking about a change in the way version numbers are incremented. People are worrying because it's called 5.0 instead of 4.1. The number attached doesn't really matter. > Again, I agree that the old pattern is not what we need, but this is upheaval, and that's not what works at corporations. What else would work? For Mozilla to dedicate a lot of extra resources to maintaining dead branches for years? Not only does this not help move corporations forward, it doesn't help Mozilla, and it doesn't help the web. If the current change management models are not working, then they need to be fixed. Test and rollout faster and more frequently. Roll out in stages, rather than with the "big bang" model. Have a roll-back plan and system in place. Really, the way people talk, it's as if every week the browser is going to break half the web. I hardly think that's the case, and I frankly think Mozilla's testing is probably more thorough than most any corporate IT department.

by synnik 15y ago

bradleyland 15y ago

The FF4 EOL announcement has a bit more impact than that. It has been announced that FF4 will not received security updates. This means that if you deploy FF4 in your enterprise, you'll not only be committing to software without support, you'll have internet-facing software that contains published vulnerabilities (as they appear). That's just unacceptable. Browser vendors would do well to adopt a release strategy that is similar to Ubuntu's model. You have a churn of releases with a periodic LTS release that will receive security patches for a longer term. The key here is understanding that there is some middle ground. The "release often, period" method of software development is attractive to a lot of us individually, but it's nearly impossible to plan for when you manage hundreds of PCs per tech support staff member. Providing a consistent LTS release schedule would at least give corporations the ability to plan.

dpark 15y ago
Corporations don't want LTS. They want RidiculouslyLTS. Ubuntu's LTS releases are supported for 3 years. IE 6 is now almost 10 years old. This is what corporations want. They want to install software and forget about it for a decade. This is not a realistic model for a browser. Even 3 years is not very realistic. 3 years means running Firefox 3.0 now, in June 2011. Sure, some people do it, but it's not a great idea for many reasons. When you're looking at Microsoft Word, expecting long-term support makes sense. It's shrink-wrapped software and upgrading is a big ordeal. You have to upgrade everyone at once, or someone's going to (repeatedly and consistently) send out docx files to coworkers who cannot open them. It can take a lot of time and money to upgrade everyone. Browsers are (or should be) different. The web is continually evolving. New exploits pop up fairly often. Regular upgrades are necessity for security and functionality, so upgrading a browser should be a minor, easy thing, and it should happen frequently. The problem is not the lack of support from Mozilla, but the expectation from corporations that browsers should be treated like Word processors.
- bradleyland 15y ago
  "Corporations don't want LTS. They want RidiculouslyLTS." Sure they do, but they also want 100% tax exemption, employees that will work 80 hours for 40 hours pay, and $0 fire and theft insurance. Companies want lots of stuff they don't get :) My point is that it's not black and white unless Mozilla chooses to make it that way. Right now, it's white. For Mozilla to say: "Infinite incremental release is the way forward" is to say, "We don't care about your ability to plan releases in any way shape or form." That's pretty black & white. Any commitment to a release schedule would, at least, give them the ability to plan. I agree that web browsers are not synonymous with word processing software, but the expectation that large corporations will simultaneously adopt web based technologies while throwing out decades of change-management process is just naivety at it's finest. Large organizations benefit from economies of scale. This means reduced costs. This means one IT manager per five hundred PCs. This means you can't roll out software willy-nilly and expect your organization to stand. Any in-roads Mozilla gained with corporations will be quickly squandered if they stick to this strategy. Again, I agree that the old pattern is not what we need, but this is upheaval, and that's not what works at corporations.
  - dpark 15y ago
    Exactly, companies want a lot of stuff, but that doesn't mean they should get it. > My point is that it's not black and white unless Mozilla chooses to make it that way. Right now, it's white. For Mozilla to say: "Infinite incremental release is the way forward" is to say, "We don't care about your ability to plan releases in any way shape or form." That's pretty black & white. Any commitment to a release schedule would, at least, give them the ability to plan. Asking for a release timeline and asking for 3 years of support on a dead branch are entirely separate things. It's not unreasonable to ask the Mozilla keep users informed of the release schedule (don't they already do this?), but asking them to support an old version for 3 years seems silly. It takes a lot of manpower and there's no value in it for probably 95% of their customers. > I agree that web browsers are not synonymous with word processing software, but the expectation that large corporations will simultaneously adopt web based technologies while throwing out decades of change-management process is just naivety at it's finest. I would say it's practical, not naive. If you want a browser that allows you to stagnate while enjoying long-term support, then either start paying someone for support, or start using IE. You agree that web browsers and word processors are different, so why should Mozilla bend over backwards to allow corporations to try to treat them the same? > Large organizations benefit from economies of scale. This means reduced costs. This means one IT manager per five hundred PCs. This means you can't roll out software willy-nilly and expect your organization to stand. Any in-roads Mozilla gained with corporations will be quickly squandered if they stick to this strategy. Sure, so don't roll out willy-nilly. Test and then roll out, just as they do now. But instead of rolling out 4.1, roll out 5.0. I don't understand what the big issue is. I'm sure it's a bit more work if there's a breaking change, but frankly you're going to have to deal with those breaking changes eventually unless you're going to stick with the same browser for years (let's call this the IE6 model). You just deal with them incrementally rather than in one massive painful push. Frankly the incremental approach sounds less painful for everyone involved. We're talking about corporations demanding that a free product meet their antiquated needs. There's no grounds for the demand. It reflects their broken rollout policies, not a deficiency on the part of Mozilla. Maybe if it takes you several months to approve a browser rollout, that's your real problem. And let's be honest, a lot of this is just baseless fear. We're talking about a change in the way version numbers are incremented. People are worrying because it's called 5.0 instead of 4.1. The number attached doesn't really matter. > Again, I agree that the old pattern is not what we need, but this is upheaval, and that's not what works at corporations. What else would work? For Mozilla to dedicate a lot of extra resources to maintaining dead branches for years? Not only does this not help move corporations forward, it doesn't help Mozilla, and it doesn't help the web. If the current change management models are not working, then they need to be fixed. Test and rollout faster and more frequently. Roll out in stages, rather than with the "big bang" model. Have a roll-back plan and system in place. Really, the way people talk, it's as if every week the browser is going to break half the web. I hardly think that's the case, and I frankly think Mozilla's testing is probably more thorough than most any corporate IT department.