4 ms·

Mozilla ponders policy change after Firefox extension battle

20 points by soundsop 17y ago

noaharc 17y ago
"The developers behind the two extensions turned the browser into a battleground as their conflict escalated." "Maone found new ways to work around the filters, but Ares2 consistently retaliated by adding increasingly draconian rules to the filter list." "Eventually, Ares2 added rules that fundamentally broke the NoScript website. Maone lost patience and decided to use his own extension to fight back." I am sympathetic to the notion that there are two sides to any argument, and Adblock is certainly an issue for many websites. However, framing this like a "controversial altercation" between two loose cannons does not do justice to the facts.
iamcalledrob 17y ago
I think in issues like this, Mozilla's policy is largely irrelevant. Policy is just words, and people will still do stupid things.
oomkiller 17y ago
Why? It worked itself out, the community process worked, therefore no changes need to be made.
jrockway 17y ago
What is a policy going to do? Sometimes I think the MoFo doesn't really understand open source. When anyone can fork your project at any time, you can't impose any restrictions. If you do, your project gets forked, and you lose control. (They tried this once with their icons and the name "Firefox". The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use "Iceweasel". Wow, MoFo, you sure showed us!) Along the same lines, there is an easy workaround for the NoScript/ABP debacle. You fork NoScript and remove the unwanted features. Then you tell everyone to use your fork instead. Problem solved. No policies needed. It's open source, guys.
- duskwuff 17y ago
  > What is a policy going to do? The Mozilla Foundation controls addons.mozilla.org. If they decide an extension is against their policy, they can remove it from their repository - and, while this doesn't mean it's impossible to install, it makes it MUCH harder to find. For an extension that relies on a.m.o publicity as much as NoScript does, it'd be a death sentence. > They tried this once with their icons and the name "Firefox". The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use "Iceweasel". You must have strange friends.
- statictype 17y ago
  >The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use "Iceweasel" On the other hand, I don't know anyone else who has heard of IceWeasel and while I know what it is, I've never used it myself.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    I guess what I meant to say was "all people that use Debian are cool" ;)
yason 17y ago
What we're talking about is the gecko/xul platform behind Firefox. By definition it's a platform and should stay neutral about what is allowed and what is not. While the Mozilla platform is indeed more integrated and monolithic than, for example, an operating system, it's still an application platform. All platforms have applications. Could you imagine GNU or Gnome setting policies for how different programs shouldn't mess and compete with each other? In an open market for applications, the bad applications just get weeded out for good. There's no need for Mozilla to intervene; the power of Mozilla platform is that extensions can do powerful stuff, upto and including battling each other. You can't go rule out just those things. * * * (Or are we in for a lengthy philosophical debate of whether it's possible to write a platform that only allows "good" things to happen? I don't think so. Those who disagree can go and drool Apple's iPhone application SDK and review process :-))
- duskwuff 17y ago
  As above (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593872 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593872): this isn't a platform issue; it's a distribution issue. The platform will almost certainly continue to support malicious and ill-behaved extensions, but a.m.o won't.

20 points by soundsop 17y ago

"The developers behind the two extensions turned the browser into a battleground as their conflict escalated." "Maone found new ways to work around the filters, but Ares2 consistently retaliated by adding increasingly draconian rules to the filter list." "Eventually, Ares2 added rules that fundamentally broke the NoScript website. Maone lost patience and decided to use his own extension to fight back." I am sympathetic to the notion that there are two sides to any argument, and Adblock is certainly an issue for many websites. However, framing this like a "controversial altercation" between two loose cannons does not do justice to the facts.

iamcalledrob 17y ago

I think in issues like this, Mozilla's policy is largely irrelevant. Policy is just words, and people will still do stupid things.

oomkiller 17y ago

Why? It worked itself out, the community process worked, therefore no changes need to be made.

jrockway 17y ago

What is a policy going to do? Sometimes I think the MoFo doesn't really understand open source. When anyone can fork your project at any time, you can't impose any restrictions. If you do, your project gets forked, and you lose control. (They tried this once with their icons and the name "Firefox". The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use "Iceweasel". Wow, MoFo, you sure showed us!) Along the same lines, there is an easy workaround for the NoScript/ABP debacle. You fork NoScript and remove the unwanted features. Then you tell everyone to use your fork instead. Problem solved. No policies needed. It's open source, guys.

duskwuff 17y ago
> What is a policy going to do? The Mozilla Foundation controls addons.mozilla.org. If they decide an extension is against their policy, they can remove it from their repository - and, while this doesn't mean it's impossible to install, it makes it MUCH harder to find. For an extension that relies on a.m.o publicity as much as NoScript does, it'd be a death sentence. > They tried this once with their icons and the name "Firefox". The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use "Iceweasel". You must have strange friends.
statictype 17y ago
>The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use "Iceweasel" On the other hand, I don't know anyone else who has heard of IceWeasel and while I know what it is, I've never used it myself.
- jrockway 17y ago
  I guess what I meant to say was "all people that use Debian are cool" ;)

yason 17y ago

What we're talking about is the gecko/xul platform behind Firefox. By definition it's a platform and should stay neutral about what is allowed and what is not. While the Mozilla platform is indeed more integrated and monolithic than, for example, an operating system, it's still an application platform. All platforms have applications. Could you imagine GNU or Gnome setting policies for how different programs shouldn't mess and compete with each other? In an open market for applications, the bad applications just get weeded out for good. There's no need for Mozilla to intervene; the power of Mozilla platform is that extensions can do powerful stuff, upto and including battling each other. You can't go rule out just those things. * * * (Or are we in for a lengthy philosophical debate of whether it's possible to write a platform that only allows "good" things to happen? I don't think so. Those who disagree can go and drool Apple's iPhone application SDK and review process :-))

duskwuff 17y ago
As above (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593872 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593872): this isn't a platform issue; it's a distribution issue. The platform will almost certainly continue to support malicious and ill-behaved extensions, but a.m.o won't.