7 ms·

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 i

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.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  > IE 6 is now almost 10 years old. This is what corporations want. Straw man. The only people I see bringing IE6 up in this discussion are those trying to create a false dichotomy between the now-trimonthly release schedules of Firefox and Chrome and something bad. > They want to install software and forget about it for a decade. This is not a realistic model for a browser. Well, if you want browsers to be taken seriously as a platform for running software applications and not just viewing static sites with occasional interactive features, then browser had better become that long-lived. Do you have any idea how much investment Microsoft makes in keeping each new version of Windows backward compatible with software and drivers from the last version (or, more likely, the last several versions)? There is no way they would be the dominant force on the desktop today if they had gone around releasing point updates to Windows every few months and arbitrarily breaking other people's software that was built on their platform. Even your three year figure is telling. If Windows 7 hadn't been able to run existing applications written in the XP era, Microsoft would probably be toast today, having blown two big OS releases in a row and lost the confidence of the developer market. Three years is within the typical lifespan of a single PC in an office environment, particularly these days when IT departments are seriously questioning the value they get from spending time and money on the upgrade roundabout and paying for all these subscription plans. Everything else that came with the PC still runs three years later and still lets people get their jobs done. Why should browsers be anything special? Your final paragraph is just outright denial. Microsoft can and do patch security and compatibility bugs in Word all the time. They just manage to do it without changing the UI, introducing new file formats while obsoleting ones that were fine just six months ago, and breaking a couple of key features that they don't care about because only 5% of users need them.
  - dpark 15y ago
    > Straw man. The only people I see bringing IE6 up in this discussion are those trying to create a false dichotomy between the now-trimonthly release schedules of Firefox and Chrome and something bad. It's not a strawman. Why do you think IE6 is still around? It's not for the grandmothers who don't know how to run Windows Update. It's for corporations who demand that Microsoft support an ancient product because they're too lazy/cheap/incompetent to upgrade their internal apps to work on modern browsers. Corporations want indefinite support on every piece of software they use (and why not, I guess). The question becomes how long does it make sense for vendors to support a product. When you're talking about a product that needs to be upgraded frequently to continue to do its job and to maintain security, I'd say the answer is "not very long". > Well, if you want browsers to be taken seriously as a platform for running software applications and not just viewing static sites with occasional interactive features, then browser had better become that long-lived. You're the one creating a false dichotomy here, pretending that the only options are to build for a stagnant browser or to not build at all. The browser is not the platform, and that's what you don't get. The web is the platform. If you built a web app for Firefox 4, it's going to work in Firefox 5. The platform hasn't changed. It's gained some new features perhaps, but the original functionality is still there. > Do you have any idea how much investment Microsoft makes in keeping each new version of Windows backward compatible with software and drivers from the last version (or, more likely, the last several versions)? There is no way they would be the dominant force on the desktop today if they had gone around releasing point updates to Windows every few months and arbitrarily breaking other people's software that was built on their platform. An interesting point of comparison would be to note that Firefox 5 is backwards-compatible with Firefox 4. Unless you choose to use bleeding-edge beta functionality, your sites will still work just fine. Mozilla (and Google, and Apple, and Microsoft) work really hard to maintain backwards-compatibility in their browsers. You're pretending that upgrading to FF5 means that everything written for older browsers will stop working. We both know that's not true. > Even your three year figure is telling. If Windows 7 hadn't been able to run existing applications written in the XP era, Microsoft would probably be toast today, having blown two big OS releases in a row and lost the confidence of the developer market. Three years is within the typical lifespan of a single PC in an office environment, particularly these days when IT departments are seriously questioning the value they get from spending time and money on the upgrade roundabout and paying for all these subscription plans. Everything else that came with the PC still runs three years later and still lets people get their jobs done. Why should browsers be anything special? They aren't special. Firefox 5 will run all the same sites as Firefox 3.0, and it will run a lot more as well. > Your final paragraph is just outright denial. Microsoft can and do patch security and compatibility bugs in Word all the time. Of course they patch bugs. I never said they didn't. That doesn't mean the Word Processor model makes sense for browsers. I'm using Microsoft Office 2008. Should I also be using Firefox 3.0? I haven't upgraded Office because it costs money. I have upgraded Firefox because it's free and easy. Browsers are no longer shrink-wrap software, and treating them as if they are is ridiculous. > They just manage to do it without changing the UI, introducing new file formats while obsoleting ones that were fine just six months ago, and breaking a couple of key features that they don't care about because only 5% of users need them. Can you point out what FF5 has done that's so terrible and backwards-incompatible? Edit: I guess there are some add-on incompatibilities, and that is something that they need to address moving forward. Frequent drops are fine, but should maintain compatibility.

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.
Silhouette 15y ago
> IE 6 is now almost 10 years old. This is what corporations want. Straw man. The only people I see bringing IE6 up in this discussion are those trying to create a false dichotomy between the now-trimonthly release schedules of Firefox and Chrome and something bad. > They want to install software and forget about it for a decade. This is not a realistic model for a browser. Well, if you want browsers to be taken seriously as a platform for running software applications and not just viewing static sites with occasional interactive features, then browser had better become that long-lived. Do you have any idea how much investment Microsoft makes in keeping each new version of Windows backward compatible with software and drivers from the last version (or, more likely, the last several versions)? There is no way they would be the dominant force on the desktop today if they had gone around releasing point updates to Windows every few months and arbitrarily breaking other people's software that was built on their platform. Even your three year figure is telling. If Windows 7 hadn't been able to run existing applications written in the XP era, Microsoft would probably be toast today, having blown two big OS releases in a row and lost the confidence of the developer market. Three years is within the typical lifespan of a single PC in an office environment, particularly these days when IT departments are seriously questioning the value they get from spending time and money on the upgrade roundabout and paying for all these subscription plans. Everything else that came with the PC still runs three years later and still lets people get their jobs done. Why should browsers be anything special? Your final paragraph is just outright denial. Microsoft can and do patch security and compatibility bugs in Word all the time. They just manage to do it without changing the UI, introducing new file formats while obsoleting ones that were fine just six months ago, and breaking a couple of key features that they don't care about because only 5% of users need them.
- dpark 15y ago
  > Straw man. The only people I see bringing IE6 up in this discussion are those trying to create a false dichotomy between the now-trimonthly release schedules of Firefox and Chrome and something bad. It's not a strawman. Why do you think IE6 is still around? It's not for the grandmothers who don't know how to run Windows Update. It's for corporations who demand that Microsoft support an ancient product because they're too lazy/cheap/incompetent to upgrade their internal apps to work on modern browsers. Corporations want indefinite support on every piece of software they use (and why not, I guess). The question becomes how long does it make sense for vendors to support a product. When you're talking about a product that needs to be upgraded frequently to continue to do its job and to maintain security, I'd say the answer is "not very long". > Well, if you want browsers to be taken seriously as a platform for running software applications and not just viewing static sites with occasional interactive features, then browser had better become that long-lived. You're the one creating a false dichotomy here, pretending that the only options are to build for a stagnant browser or to not build at all. The browser is not the platform, and that's what you don't get. The web is the platform. If you built a web app for Firefox 4, it's going to work in Firefox 5. The platform hasn't changed. It's gained some new features perhaps, but the original functionality is still there. > Do you have any idea how much investment Microsoft makes in keeping each new version of Windows backward compatible with software and drivers from the last version (or, more likely, the last several versions)? There is no way they would be the dominant force on the desktop today if they had gone around releasing point updates to Windows every few months and arbitrarily breaking other people's software that was built on their platform. An interesting point of comparison would be to note that Firefox 5 is backwards-compatible with Firefox 4. Unless you choose to use bleeding-edge beta functionality, your sites will still work just fine. Mozilla (and Google, and Apple, and Microsoft) work really hard to maintain backwards-compatibility in their browsers. You're pretending that upgrading to FF5 means that everything written for older browsers will stop working. We both know that's not true. > Even your three year figure is telling. If Windows 7 hadn't been able to run existing applications written in the XP era, Microsoft would probably be toast today, having blown two big OS releases in a row and lost the confidence of the developer market. Three years is within the typical lifespan of a single PC in an office environment, particularly these days when IT departments are seriously questioning the value they get from spending time and money on the upgrade roundabout and paying for all these subscription plans. Everything else that came with the PC still runs three years later and still lets people get their jobs done. Why should browsers be anything special? They aren't special. Firefox 5 will run all the same sites as Firefox 3.0, and it will run a lot more as well. > Your final paragraph is just outright denial. Microsoft can and do patch security and compatibility bugs in Word all the time. Of course they patch bugs. I never said they didn't. That doesn't mean the Word Processor model makes sense for browsers. I'm using Microsoft Office 2008. Should I also be using Firefox 3.0? I haven't upgraded Office because it costs money. I have upgraded Firefox because it's free and easy. Browsers are no longer shrink-wrap software, and treating them as if they are is ridiculous. > They just manage to do it without changing the UI, introducing new file formats while obsoleting ones that were fine just six months ago, and breaking a couple of key features that they don't care about because only 5% of users need them. Can you point out what FF5 has done that's so terrible and backwards-incompatible? Edit: I guess there are some add-on incompatibilities, and that is something that they need to address moving forward. Frequent drops are fine, but should maintain compatibility.