Some Clarification and Musings

http://tylerdowner.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/some-clarification-and-musings/

by ck2 • 15 years ago

36 31 15 years ago

tylerdowner.wordpress.com

ck23• 15 years ago

I would have much less of a problem with rapid release if they'd stop changing major version numbers.

There is a three part version number for a reason, use it.

Firefox 5 should have been 4.5 and 6 should have been 4.6

If you want to release every other month to imply there are improvements, go for it - just don't imply there are major changes for "political" reasons.

thristian3• 15 years ago

The reason Firefox keeps changing major version numbers is that they no longer guarantee binary or source compatibility for extensions from one release to the next. Since the releases are much closer together, there's less chance that any particular addon will be affected by the changes between version X and version X+1, but there's a much higher chance of addons being effected than, say, in any given six-week period during the reign of Firefox 3.6.

nirvdrum2• 15 years ago

This in itself is kinda crazy. Maybe Firefox has hit some new stage in its lifecycle, but it seems to have completely turned face on what originally helped it catch on. I can't imagine any add-on author targeting a platform that makes no guarantee on compatibility after 3 months.

theshadow• 15 years ago

Please tell me you are making the exact same post about Chrome's version inflation? "Political Reasons"? please elaborate. Mozilla announced months ago that it was not using version numbers for marketing purposes and they announced recently that they are doing away with version numbers completely, so I fail to see what the "political reasons" might be.

jmatt• 15 years ago

I thought the goal was to motivate users and IT organizations to stay current. This frees up Mozilla developers from fixing bugs in N many different old versions of Firefox.

To me, the reasoning behind the change in version is pretty clear. Especially looking at the disaster that was IE6. As soon as there is any support for old versions some IT department somewhere will immediately decide it's time to freeze their version. Moving forward after making a freeze like this becomes very difficult (that has been my experience). This presents two options 1) It's their own problem and move on or 2) Continue to patch old versions. The issue with patching old versions is bad IT decisions end up costing Mozilla time. Meanwhile chrome just continues chugging along at full speed only supporting current.

The current linux distro versioning and support structure seems to map well to this problem. Ubuntu, for instance, has LTS versions that IT can stick with and are patched for X many years.

Windows users update their anti-virus software and definitions in near real-time. Operating Systems update near real-time... why not browsers. I now use chrome most of the time and I am (surprisingly) happy with their versioning. I was a naysayer when they first started too.

ck23• 15 years ago

Isn't this self-defeating when there are eight major version number changes per year? Won't people start ignoring the need upgrade because there will be another new version in a few weeks?

In all seriousness - Firefox version 25 in two years, think about that and how no-one is going to take major version numbers for real anymore.

If they insist on this, I'd rather have a YEAR.MONTH version number. Firefox Version 2012.4

DanBealeC• 15 years ago

"I would have much less of a problem with rapid release if they'd stop changing major version numbers"

They're going to stop having any version numbers.

0x0x0x• 15 years ago

I've stuck with Firefox over Chrome because I don't want Google to win the browser. But with most of the signs and some news out of the Mozilla camp having not been good lately, each piece of news nibbles at my ear just a little bit more.

Yoric2• 15 years ago

Funny, that. I have been hearing the opposite kind of signs and news :)

I guess it's a matter of perspective (and of which HN headlines attract your attention :) )

AndrewDucker• 15 years ago

As pointed out in a different comment, Chrome has over four times as many open bug reports.

Joakal• 15 years ago

What examples from the Mozilla camp not been good?

mike-cardwell• 15 years ago

I was considering moving from Firefox to Chrome, but with Firefox's recent performance improvements, I no longer see any reason to. The one benefit which Chrome had (performance), I no longer see. I like that Chrome exists, because it pushes Firefox to be better.

thatjoshguy• 15 years ago

I've been using Chrome for Mac ever since it was in early, buggy developer builds. I was using Safari before that, but only because Firefox on OS X sucks.

For Windows, on the otherhand, I love Firefox so much. I do fine it's performance and UI so much better. Chrome sucks with lots of tabs open and the UI just bores me.

thristian3• 15 years ago

The given headline is needlessly inflammatory. The very next post on that blog[1] says: "Firefox did not ship with 6,000 bugs."

[1] http://tylerdowner.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/even-more-clarif...

ck23• 15 years ago

If I said "the firefox project has 6000 open bugs" would that have been better?

Now realize that's just semantics.

For the record I am a diehard firefox user, 6000 bugs or not.

robin_reala• 15 years ago

Not really. The actual number of bugs (not enhancements) confirmed as legitimate (NEW, ASSIGNED, REOPENED) but not fixed across both the Firefox (interface) and core (backend) projects in Bugzilla is 31,992.[+]

This doesn’t matter. At the end of the day it’s about severity. If Firefox ships with 31,992 critical end-user visible bugs then it’ll be rightly panned. It hasn’t been, therefore the large majority of the issues aren’t that severe, therefore they can be dealt with at a slower pace.

[+] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=1199753&...

dotcoma• 15 years ago

If you don't pay attention to them, they'll go away, won't they? ;-)

garrettl• 15 years ago

Sometimes, yes.

Yoric2• 15 years ago

It took me some time, but I have come to terms with the rapid release process. I believe that it is actually a very good idea, as it makes the web much more competitive against, say, native iPad development – I may be a tad sectarian, but I tend to prefer the (mostly) open web to the (definitely) closed iPad model.

Now, the problem mentioned in the OA is quite real. Some of the processes of Mozilla have not scaled up yet. I suppose that they will.

obeattie• 15 years ago

By comparison, Chromium (Chrome) has 28,299 open bugs.

mattvot• 15 years ago

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list

dirtyaura• 15 years ago

In all large software projects I've worked, amount of open bugs always increased over time, only way to decrease them was to aggressively mark reports as ignored or wontfix.

rbanffy3• 15 years ago

Which is only natural. I don't expect fixes for Firefox 2 anymore.

gcb• 15 years ago

Just like chrome and android

elmindreda• 15 years ago

That's great! That means we will get frequent releases, each with some bug fixes, instead of being stuck with an old, bug-ridden version, forever waiting for the perfect release.

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/...

sp332• 15 years ago

Right, and not all of the "in-progress" features get shipped in each release. Each release only ships the parts that are ready. That way, users get the benefit of new, finished features without having to wait for thousands of bugs in unrelated parts of the code to be fixed first.

Some Clarification and Musings

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