4 ms·

To my mind, this is mostly a culture clash. In no way is it "Enterprise Users" that FF is worried about; it's Enterprise IT guys. Spoken as a startup executive

To my mind, this is mostly a culture clash. In no way is it "Enterprise Users" that FF is worried about; it's Enterprise IT guys. Spoken as a startup executive who also wears the IT hat at times -- those guys can be fascist bastards. I don't really want to help them either. Well, I guess I'll erase this post when I do my next Group Policy-based startup. Until then, I stand by my statement. Long ago, IT was there to help users work with something they couldn't understand. Now IT has sort of turned into that abusive controlling parent who too often says "you can't do this, because I don't like it." Standard disclaimers apply: you are not like this, you are a great IT person. That said, I think there is absolutely no chance that the Firefox team will, after significant internal effort to speed up and become more agile, slow down to please IT groups. Organizations that are also learning to speed up will get benefits from FF or Chrome, others won't. I do agree that plugin development issues are a serious pain point. I anticipate that they'll work out some better system (maybe a version API contract that tells a plugin what they can consume?).

owenmarshall 15y ago
I think this new development process will actually be a benefit for plugin authors. Each new version will come with fewer big changes, meaning that plugins may just keep working across different versions. Of course, that benefit can only be realized if plugins are no longer tied to a version. A good solution is definitely needed here.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  That makes no sense. If you move a product from A to B where A is compatible with a plug-in and B isn't, it doesn't matter whether you do it in one step or 10 steps, it's still going to break at some point. The positive for developers is that the smaller number of changes might make it easier to identify what's caused the problem and means that any particular release is less likely to cause a problem, the downside is that you have to retest it far more often and you have far more releases that might break something. Overall it feels slightly (though not massively) worse for developers as the total overhead of basic test, release and so on increases.
  - owenmarshall 15y ago
    https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Updating_extensions_for_Firefox_4 https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Updating_extensi... Too many at one time for me. I'd much rather be able to follow the 5->6 release cycle and test my extension over a much smaller set of changes. Other devs may disagree, that's fine and worth discussion. The key point IMO is that extension authors must be provided a way to indicate extension compatibility that isn't tied to the browser version number. The version is going to start iterating much faster, and popping up a "these extensions are broken!" box every few months will completely kill user confidence in extensions.
raganwald 15y ago
Blatant self-pimpery garbed in wholesale agreement with your point: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control-of-apparatus.html http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control-of-...
middus 15y ago
"I have 500,000 corporate users on Firefox 3.6. We just completing a test cycle of Firefox 4 on many thousands of internal business web applications" I don't really get the problem? Firefox 4 is a browser that honours web standards. So if your web apps work on version 4, why shouldn't they on 5? Firefox won't drop JavaScript or the <table> element!?
- gaius 15y ago
  Evidently not Because there is the possibility that there are bugs in 5 that were not in 4? As many others have said, extensions that work in 4 do not work in 5...
  - middus 15y ago
    This manager is not talking about extensions, he's talking about web apps. I'm pretty sure that it's rather unlikely that Mozilla has a major screw up in the Gecko rendering engine or their javascript implementation. Even if so, the accelerated release cycle will ensure that it'll be fixed right away.
    - jbk 15y ago
      Rather unlikely can still be very annoying if it breaks one of your major corporate web application.
    - vessenes 15y ago
      It's interesting -- when I have my software company that builds web apps hat on, I assume that if there's a rendering problem with a new browser, it's our problem: these guys lead the standards groups, so we fix our app as best we can, and remember that people are used to seeing occasionally broken stuff on the internet. Not the end of the world. That's contrary to this point of view, and maybe just speaks to how IT and internal corporate application mindsets are different.
      - Silhouette 15y ago
        > when I have my software company that builds web apps hat on, I assume that if there's a rendering problem with a new browser, it's our problem I used to assume that, but I've spent so much time in the past few months fixing silly bugs that really were regressions in mainstream browsers that my default is now to assume that if something works in two or three browsers but not another then they really have broken something. This is why I have been so critical of the rapid updates policy in various recent discussions.
drzaiusapelord 15y ago
I really dislike this strawman and how it goes unchallenged. From my experience, its the IT guy who wants to move to Firefox, but finds no official MSI installer and no official group policy extensions difficult to work with on a day to day basis. Mozilla is purposely shooting itself it the foot because it doesn't want to strain its OSS cred by appealing to MS environments and IT departments. Now compare this awful shortsighted attitude to Google's Chrome. Official MSI installer - check. Auto updating - Check. Auto updating of flash - Check. Group Policy - check. Secure sandboxing - check. The narrative of Firefox isn't "the nerds vs the assholes in IT" its "OSS pigheadedness & zealotry vs basic convenience" and its amusing to see a more liberal project like Chrome eat its lunch.
- vessenes 15y ago
  I like all those things in Chrome, too, although we're so heterogenous that they don't matter that much in my organizations, honestly. That said, did you read the original article? Thousands of web apps need to be 're-certified'. This guy isn't installing Chrome in his office. Full disclosure: I typed this in Chrome.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - drzaiusapelord 15y ago
    I did read the original article. I still don't see any good reason why Mozilla is abandoning major releases in 3 months. Heaven forbid those 'assholes' in IT be allowed to do testing on any schedule other than the whims of Asa Dotzler. The suggestion from Asa about someone starting a business version of FF is ridiculous on its face. Why bother dealing with FF and paying when IE9 is good enough? Especially with Chrome as an alternate browser? The dismissive neckbeard attitude doesn't win friends or marketshare. I wish more people understood this. I also wish people would stop it with the double-standard. Imagine if MS pulled shit like this and responded like Asa did. Or if the Mysql guys did this and said 'update it every 3 months, if you dont like it then pay for Oracle.' Just incredible how much leeway we give Mozilla for some bizarre reason. Fanboys die hard, I guess.
Flenser 15y ago
That said, I think there is absolutely no chance that the Firefox team will, after significant internal effort to speed up and become more agile, slow down to please IT groups. It's not the speed of development that's the problem; it's the speed of obsolescence. If they supported older versions for longer there wouldn't be a problem.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Nothing is free. You have so many hours of development time available. The more old versions you support, the less time you have available for new development. The very fastest thing to do is to only suport the latest version. I'm not saying this is the best or right thing to do, just that there is a natural trade-off between supporting old versions and developing new functionality.
  - Flenser 15y ago
    But if the release schedule is faster, and there is less in each release, then surely they can support more releases. I'm assuming that the amount of code change relative to the latest release has more impact than the incremental burden of supporting each additional release.
- vessenes 15y ago
  I think this is functionally why the Chrome team hides the version number. They wanted it to be more like a utility, or web app. What version is your version of Hacker News running? In order to get that kind of instant deployment for a distributable executable, you have to really solve distribution down the chain to (especially) the windows desktop. The Chrome guys did that, it rocks, and it works. Versions probably originally existed to allow marketing teams to sell more. I wouldn't be surprised if FF eventually drops the version number thing and just has a 'stable' and 'exciting' branch type system for their users.
  - ultrasaurus 15y ago
    True, I'm vaguely aware that I run Chrome 13 (Stable) and Chrome 14 (Canary) for testing -- but I'm surprisingly vague on that awareness -- in fact I got it wrong (I thought it was 12 that was stable)

owenmarshall 15y ago

I think this new development process will actually be a benefit for plugin authors. Each new version will come with fewer big changes, meaning that plugins may just keep working across different versions. Of course, that benefit can only be realized if plugins are no longer tied to a version. A good solution is definitely needed here.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
That makes no sense. If you move a product from A to B where A is compatible with a plug-in and B isn't, it doesn't matter whether you do it in one step or 10 steps, it's still going to break at some point. The positive for developers is that the smaller number of changes might make it easier to identify what's caused the problem and means that any particular release is less likely to cause a problem, the downside is that you have to retest it far more often and you have far more releases that might break something. Overall it feels slightly (though not massively) worse for developers as the total overhead of basic test, release and so on increases.
- owenmarshall 15y ago
  https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Updating_extensions_for_Firefox_4 https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Updating_extensi... Too many at one time for me. I'd much rather be able to follow the 5->6 release cycle and test my extension over a much smaller set of changes. Other devs may disagree, that's fine and worth discussion. The key point IMO is that extension authors must be provided a way to indicate extension compatibility that isn't tied to the browser version number. The version is going to start iterating much faster, and popping up a "these extensions are broken!" box every few months will completely kill user confidence in extensions.

raganwald 15y ago

Blatant self-pimpery garbed in wholesale agreement with your point: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control-of-apparatus.html http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control-of-...

middus 15y ago

"I have 500,000 corporate users on Firefox 3.6. We just completing a test cycle of Firefox 4 on many thousands of internal business web applications" I don't really get the problem? Firefox 4 is a browser that honours web standards. So if your web apps work on version 4, why shouldn't they on 5? Firefox won't drop JavaScript or the <table> element!?

gaius 15y ago
Evidently not Because there is the possibility that there are bugs in 5 that were not in 4? As many others have said, extensions that work in 4 do not work in 5...
- middus 15y ago
  This manager is not talking about extensions, he's talking about web apps. I'm pretty sure that it's rather unlikely that Mozilla has a major screw up in the Gecko rendering engine or their javascript implementation. Even if so, the accelerated release cycle will ensure that it'll be fixed right away.
  - jbk 15y ago
    Rather unlikely can still be very annoying if it breaks one of your major corporate web application.
  - vessenes 15y ago
    It's interesting -- when I have my software company that builds web apps hat on, I assume that if there's a rendering problem with a new browser, it's our problem: these guys lead the standards groups, so we fix our app as best we can, and remember that people are used to seeing occasionally broken stuff on the internet. Not the end of the world. That's contrary to this point of view, and maybe just speaks to how IT and internal corporate application mindsets are different.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      > when I have my software company that builds web apps hat on, I assume that if there's a rendering problem with a new browser, it's our problem I used to assume that, but I've spent so much time in the past few months fixing silly bugs that really were regressions in mainstream browsers that my default is now to assume that if something works in two or three browsers but not another then they really have broken something. This is why I have been so critical of the rapid updates policy in various recent discussions.

drzaiusapelord 15y ago

I really dislike this strawman and how it goes unchallenged. From my experience, its the IT guy who wants to move to Firefox, but finds no official MSI installer and no official group policy extensions difficult to work with on a day to day basis. Mozilla is purposely shooting itself it the foot because it doesn't want to strain its OSS cred by appealing to MS environments and IT departments. Now compare this awful shortsighted attitude to Google's Chrome. Official MSI installer - check. Auto updating - Check. Auto updating of flash - Check. Group Policy - check. Secure sandboxing - check. The narrative of Firefox isn't "the nerds vs the assholes in IT" its "OSS pigheadedness & zealotry vs basic convenience" and its amusing to see a more liberal project like Chrome eat its lunch.

vessenes 15y ago
I like all those things in Chrome, too, although we're so heterogenous that they don't matter that much in my organizations, honestly. That said, did you read the original article? Thousands of web apps need to be 're-certified'. This guy isn't installing Chrome in his office. Full disclosure: I typed this in Chrome.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- drzaiusapelord 15y ago
  I did read the original article. I still don't see any good reason why Mozilla is abandoning major releases in 3 months. Heaven forbid those 'assholes' in IT be allowed to do testing on any schedule other than the whims of Asa Dotzler. The suggestion from Asa about someone starting a business version of FF is ridiculous on its face. Why bother dealing with FF and paying when IE9 is good enough? Especially with Chrome as an alternate browser? The dismissive neckbeard attitude doesn't win friends or marketshare. I wish more people understood this. I also wish people would stop it with the double-standard. Imagine if MS pulled shit like this and responded like Asa did. Or if the Mysql guys did this and said 'update it every 3 months, if you dont like it then pay for Oracle.' Just incredible how much leeway we give Mozilla for some bizarre reason. Fanboys die hard, I guess.

Flenser 15y ago

That said, I think there is absolutely no chance that the Firefox team will, after significant internal effort to speed up and become more agile, slow down to please IT groups. It's not the speed of development that's the problem; it's the speed of obsolescence. If they supported older versions for longer there wouldn't be a problem.

raganwald 15y ago
Nothing is free. You have so many hours of development time available. The more old versions you support, the less time you have available for new development. The very fastest thing to do is to only suport the latest version. I'm not saying this is the best or right thing to do, just that there is a natural trade-off between supporting old versions and developing new functionality.
- Flenser 15y ago
  But if the release schedule is faster, and there is less in each release, then surely they can support more releases. I'm assuming that the amount of code change relative to the latest release has more impact than the incremental burden of supporting each additional release.
vessenes 15y ago
I think this is functionally why the Chrome team hides the version number. They wanted it to be more like a utility, or web app. What version is your version of Hacker News running? In order to get that kind of instant deployment for a distributable executable, you have to really solve distribution down the chain to (especially) the windows desktop. The Chrome guys did that, it rocks, and it works. Versions probably originally existed to allow marketing teams to sell more. I wouldn't be surprised if FF eventually drops the version number thing and just has a 'stable' and 'exciting' branch type system for their users.
- ultrasaurus 15y ago
  True, I'm vaguely aware that I run Chrome 13 (Stable) and Chrome 14 (Canary) for testing -- but I'm surprisingly vague on that awareness -- in fact I got it wrong (I thought it was 12 that was stable)