Mozilla Have Lost Their Mind - Revenge of the Sith



  • http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.usability/browse_thread/thread/fe75ec92c02be934#

     "Mozilla's Asa Dotzler explained, "We're moving to a more Web-like convention where it's simply not important what version you're using as long as it's the latest version. ... The most important thing is confidence that they're on the latest release. That's what the About dialog will give them."



  • They can only do the auto-upgrade because their product is free.

    The corrollary is that version numbers are just a marketing gimmick.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    It seems like the next logical step is to back down from the monthly major version bumps, and have them be minor version numbers again, like God intended them to be.



  • Heaven forbid you might not have THE LATEST AND GREATEST!

    Assuming, of course, that the latest is actually the greatest. (And not just in girth or something.)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @too_many_usernames said:

    Heaven forbid you might not have THE LATEST AND GREATEST!

    Assuming, of course, that the latest is actually the greatest. (And not just in girth or something.)

    Well, considering that when they bump the major version, they no longer provide security updates for older versions, yeah, you should care.


  • You know, I have to pour some more thought into this and right now I've got better stuff to do, but my first impression is "meh, ok".

    It won't shock me if they remove the publicly visible version number and change to some build- or date-based internal versioning as long as the addons don't start incorrectly reporting incompatibility.



  • @too_many_usernames said:

    Assuming, of course, that the latest is actually the greatest.
    I hope they don't go the way of Gmail, where even basic stuff starts breaking all of a sudden.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Zecc said:

    I hope they don't go the way of Gmail, where even basic stuff starts breaking all of a sudden.

    I'm trying to figure out what this means. Oh! Web app has a bug! Fascinating...



  • I think he just has a random gripe about Gmail and doesn't want to create his own thread. Because I don't get the link, either...


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    I think he just has a random gripe about Gmail and doesn't want to create his own thread. Because I don't get the link, either...

    I remember when StackOverflow had this issue with firefox. I think their rich editor's javascript was eating arrow key presses or something. I assume it's something similar for gmail. So, um, there's a Mozilla tie in!



  • @Asa Dotzler @ the usenet discussion said:

    John Goins wrote:

    How about removing the version number when Firefox is current, but

    leaving it there if it needs updates?

    If Firefox needs updates, it will simply update. No need to supply a version number.

    - A

    Unavoidable auto-updates? I think I hear celebration among the sys-admins.</sarcasm> Also, this would probably screw most package-management systems on the linux distros.

    Not to mention that firefox can't really update itself without getting superuser access (unless they decide to use the profile directory to hold an updated version of firefox for each user, or something similarly icky :-()


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @cvi said:

    Unavoidable auto-updates? I think I hear celebration among the sys-admins.</sarcasm> Also, this would probably screw most package-management systems on the linux distros.

    I suspect it will rely on the package manager, just like it currently does, and like chrome does.



  • Mozilla Have Lost Their Mind

    lol

    Where did you learn English? The UK?



  • I am still waiting for a browser web app. Just think about it: World-wide instant upgrades! And the popular counter-argument—that you need an internet connection to use web apps—does not even apply because you need an internet connection to browse anyway! Ha! In the future, you will only have to download Xulrunner and then you can open the Firefox browser.xul directly from the Mozilla homepage! Just think of all the kittens!


    Someone please kill me.



  • @SilentRunner said:

    Where did you learn English? The UK?

     

    Congratulations on noticing that there is a world outside America!

    Like Firefox, English has no version numbers.  You just have to hope it auto-updates.  Yours apparently hasn't, so you might like to vist getthequeensenglish.com for the latest version -- now with the ability to choose between singular or plural verbs for nouns referring to a collection of multiple people!

     (The singular "mind" is also not an error. In case it was not previously obvious, this latest development proves once and for all that the Mozilla core developers have been sharing a single brain between themselves for some time.)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Iago said:

    Like Firefox, English has no version numbers.  You just have to hope it auto-updates.  Yours apparently hasn't, so you might like to vist getthequeensenglish.com for the latest version

    There's your problem. That version is over 200 years out of date.


  • Garbage Person

    @fatbull said:

    I am still waiting for a browser web app. Just think about it: World-wide instant upgrades! And the popular counter-argument—that you need an internet connection to use web apps—does not even apply because you need an internet connection to browse anyway! Ha! In the future, you will only have to download Xulrunner and then you can open the Firefox browser.xul directly from the Mozilla homepage! Just think of all the kittens!

    Did you have to post that on a public forum? Now the assholes might actually do it. And if they don't Google will.



  • @hoodaticus said:

    The corrollary is that version numbers are just a marketing gimmick.
     

    Version ∞



  • @fatbull said:

    I am still waiting for a browser web app. Just think about it: World-wide instant upgrades! And the popular counter-argument—that you need an internet connection to use web apps—does not even apply because you need an internet connection to browse anyway! Ha! In the future, you will only have to download Xulrunner and then you can open the Firefox browser.xul directly from the Mozilla homepage! Just think of all the kittens!
     

    TBH they could make it so you download and install a small, rarely changing, launcher which fetches theactual browser code from the net and runs it, and it would make some [limited values of] sense.

    Also, fuck nazi corporate IT.

     



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I think he just has a random gripe about Gmail and doesn't want to create his own thread. Because I don't get the link, either...
    My gripe is against software developers being "clever" with the UI, breaking basic functionality, and then releasing their not-fully-tested changes to the wild without warning.

    I know I shouldn't complain about what I'm getting for free, but I didn't sign in for beta-testing.

    This is somewhat related to the Mozilla topic because I defend that there should be a separate versioning for changes that fix bugs, and versions that mess with the interface (whether the UI or the API). As I've said before.

    I'm a normal person, so I don't like it when people figuratively pull the rug from under my feet, and I get the feeling this is what's going to happen with Firefox from now on.

    Did I go on a tangent because I felt like venting? Yes. So what? It's not like it hasn't been done before.

     

    PS: Also, nautilus removed the button for toggling the address bar between text mode and breadcumb/button mode. Why the hell do people hide stuff that works? They didn't even really truly remove it, just hid it behind a keyboard shortcut.





  • @dhromed said:

    What?

    You don't find that incredibly annoying? My first TV used to fire up within a second. This Samsung 26in takes ~10-15 seconds before it boots up. Why. And there's also a channel switching delay.



  • @cvi said:

    Not to mention that firefox can't really update itself without getting superuser access (unless they decide to use the profile directory to hold an updated version of firefox for each user, or something similarly icky :-()
    Recent versions of Windows Installer allow updates to be installed by non-admin users (as long as an admin didn't disable this through group policy). Of course, Firefox doesn't use Windows Installer, but it could use a custom service for this instead.



  • @nexekho said:

    @dhromed said:
    What?

    You don't find that incredibly annoying? My first TV used to fire up within a second. This Samsung 26in takes ~10-15 seconds before it boots up. Why. And there's also a channel switching delay.

    Too much software and overloaded buttons. But then you sort of need the delay. When I was growing up there was 4 or 5 fta channels available. Now there's 16, with more on the way. How do you type in channel 22 without a delay, while still being able to use channel 2?

    Besides, my first tv took about 10 seconds to warm up! And you had to get up to change the channel due to it having a mechanical channel selector. Then in 1991 or so the tv stations changed from VHF to UHF - which didn't have discrete channels on that old thing, and had to tune it like an analog radio.

    What about mobile phones? A fast phone is the nokia 3315. The newer nokias are much more laggy in the interface, but have more features.



  •  Not to mention newer TVs have a lot more to do than the old tubes.  The signals now have to be decoded, and then processed by half a dozen filters and softwares to make them look nicer, and then transmitted to a panel of about 2,073,600 pixels to be shown.

    On the original topic, the more they go along with this insanity, the more I'm seriously considering going back to IE.  Has anyone else used 9 yet?  I'm genuinely impressed with it.



  • @ender said:

    Recent versions of Windows Installer allow updates to be installed by non-admin users (as long as an admin didn't disable this through group policy). Of course, Firefox doesn't use Windows Installer, but it could use a custom service for this instead.

    Interesting, didn't know that. So, with this Windows Installer feature, a single (non-admin) user can initiate an update of a software package for the whole machine? Does the software have to be signed somehow for this to work?



  • @nexekho said:

    @dhromed said:
    What?
    You don't find that incredibly annoying? My first TV used to fire up within a second. This Samsung 26in takes ~10-15 seconds before it boots up. Why. And there's also a channel switching delay.

     

    I have a DVR (used with DirectTV) that sometimes takes >5 seconds to process a single keystroke from the remote.  Keying in channel numbers can take several tries because the thing times out before the entire input is processed.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Zemm said:

    How do you type in channel 22 without a delay, while still being able to use channel 2?




  • @Zemm said:

    How do you type in channel 22 without a delay, while still being able to use channel 2?
    This is not my gripe. My gripe is: when changing channels sequentially, ie browsing or zapping, or what you want to call it, my TV has a 2 sec lag when it shows nothing but black and silence. I trust this it is due to the need of decoding the digital signal and filing an internal buffer or something. Whatever the reason, it annoys me.

    Also, when the aerial reception gets interference (no, I don't have cable and I'm not particularly interested anyway), it drops a rather large number of frames and/or stays stuck in an image with those nice artifacts recognisable as decoding errors.

    Analog signal was a lot more resilient IMO. Sure, the image would get snowy and the sound noisy, but at least it didn't come to a halt.




  • @Zecc said:

    Analog signal was a lot more resilient IMO. Sure, the image would get snowy and the sound noisy, but at least it didn't come to a halt.

    Hmmm, maybe this is why analog communication is used so much in the future, as shown by any sci-fi that existed before digital stuff was common.



  • @Zecc said:

    Analog signal was a lot more resilient IMO. Sure, the image would get snowy and the sound noisy, but at least it didn't come to a halt.

    Yes I too prefer analog television signal, that is one reason, as well as no lag between changing the channel, and for other reasons. However I do not watch television a lot.



  • @cvi said:

    Interesting, didn't know that. So, with this Windows Installer feature, a single (non-admin) user can initiate an update of a software package for the whole machine? Does the software have to be signed somehow for this to work?
    Both the original (full) installer, and the update installers must be signed, and the original installer has to have an indication that it supports non-admin updates. IIRC, Adobe Reader 9 used this feature, but they seem to have dropped it in 10.



  • @Zecc said:

    Also, when the aerial reception gets interference (no, I don't have cable and I'm not particularly interested anyway), it drops a rather large number of frames and/or stays stuck in an image with those nice artifacts recognisable as decoding errors.

    Analog signal was a lot more resilient IMO. Sure, the image would get snowy and the sound noisy, but at least it didn't come to a halt.

    If a digital channel used half the bandwidth analogue channels needed, your picture would be rock solid. It's just a compromise other people made on your behalf.

    While digital TV has its flaws (such as not being able to synchronise the signal on two decoders so that you can turn two TVs on without it sounding dreadful), it does allow more channels to be transmitted. And, at least it's faster at starting up than Youtube.




  • @__moz said:

    While digital TV has its flaws (such as not being able to synchronise the signal on two decoders so that you can turn two TVs on without it sounding dreadful)
     

    My wife was watching State of Origin on an analogue TV in the study and I was watching it on the digital telly in the living room.  She was a couple of seconds ahead so I'd here her loudly celebrating a try while I was watching a slow build-up 40 metres out and cursing while I was still oblivious to the bad things that were about to happen.

    A less partisan description of State of Origin can be found here



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    @__moz said:

    While digital TV has its flaws (such as not being able to synchronise the signal on two decoders so that you can turn two TVs on without it sounding dreadful)
     

    My wife was watching State of Origin on an analogue TV in the study and I was watching it on the digital telly in the living room.  She was a couple of seconds ahead so I'd here her loudly celebrating a try while I was watching a slow build-up 40 metres out and cursing while I was still oblivious to the bad things that were about to happen.

    A less partisan description of State of Origin can be found here

    During the soccer world cup, we had the chance to be able to identify which house in our street had which TV connection. Satellite users were usually the first ones to celebrate (or curse) a goal, followed by cable, followed by terrestrial. About a six second delay between satellite and terrestrial.



  • @Zecc said:

    @Zemm said:
    How do you type in channel 22 without a delay, while still being able to use channel 2?
    This is not my gripe. My gripe is: when changing channels sequentially, ie browsing or zapping, or what you want to call it, my TV has a 2 sec lag when it shows nothing but black and silence. I trust this it is due to the need of decoding the digital signal and filing an internal buffer or something. Whatever the reason, it annoys me.

    It's waiting for a keyframe. Frames in digital TV are mostly sent as deltas from the previous frame, because it saves on bandwidth that way (and so lets them fit more channels into the same amount of spectrum). Obviously, that means it's impossible to work out what the signal means until a frame that makes sense on its own arrives. IIRC, some formats even allow frames to contain deltas backwards from future frames, which adds an extra delay while the TV waits for the frame it was diffed against to arrive; I'm not sure if that's used in the actual encodings digital TV uses.

    As an aside, I once came across a video produced by the sort of video encoder who has competitions as to how small they can make a video while still making it look good (they exist, apparently). It was small and looked great, but I couldn't seek in it. It turned out that it had no keyframes at all, other than the very first, thus making the whole thing more or less useless for anything other than watching from start to finish. I'm sure that it wouldn't have been that much larger with a few keyframes added here and there to make it easier to seek...



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    (up and down buttons)
     

    You know what's interesting is the difference in different brands.

    My old set-top box proceeded in numerical order: 1 › 2 › 3 › 7 › 9 › 10 › 11 › 21 › 22 › ...

    My new 40" Sony TV proceeds in string order: 1 › 10 › 11 › 2 › 21 › 22 › 23 › 24 › 3 › 30 › ...

    I wonder why there's a difference?


  • @Zemm said:

    My new 40" Sony TV proceeds in string order: 1 › 10 › 11 › 2 › 21 › 22 › 23 › 24 › 3 › 30 › ...

    I wonder why there's a difference?

    WHAT?!  Maybe because the developer is FREAKING STUPID.

    And a lack of QA.



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    My wife was watching State of Origin on an analogue TV in the study and I was watching it on the digital telly in the living room.  She was a couple of seconds ahead so I'd here her loudly celebrating a try while I was watching a slow build-up 40 metres out and cursing while I was still oblivious to the bad things that were about to happen.
     

    Opposites like with my wife too, hey? Dirty cockroaches. I'm sort of glad that Roy and HG don't do their broadcast anymore, since they were ahead of digital TV (the "digital divide") too. There was actually a radio station in Brisbane that was doing that but it was too hard to watch with the commentary so out of sync, and I CBF tuning into the analogue signals when they're going to be switched off soon.



  • @Zemm said:

    Opposites like with my wife too, hey?

    I think my tortured sentence gave the wrong impression.... My wife's a Queenslander and I am an adopted (ex-Pom) Queenslander.



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    adopted

    Fatty-fatty no-parents!



  •  Firebug stops working in Firefox 6, which I accidentally upgraded to last night at home.



  • @derula said:

    Fatty-fatty no-parents!
     

    I'm pondering a random tagger script that scrapes words and/or phrases from the thread. It will be tricky.



  • @dhromed said:

     Firebug stops working in Firefox 6, which I accidentally upgraded to last night at home.

    Thanks for the warning. My sixth sense warned me to avoid upgrading a few hours ago.

     



  • @dhromed said:

    Firebug stops working in Firefox 6, which I accidentally upgraded to last night at home.

    Wordpress complains that 3.6.20 is out of date even though it was released in the last 24 hours and is "still supported" according to Wikipedia. But it didn't complain about Firefox 5, which is not! Firebug seems to be working in Firefox 6 though.



  • @dhromed said:

    @derula said:
    Fatty-fatty no-parents!
    I'm pondering a random tagger script that scrapes words and/or phrases from the thread. It will be tricky.

    You should go one step further. Scrape words or phrases from the thread (by frequency, post age and of course plus a bit random), google them and extract important phrases from the top result.



  • @derula said:

    @RTapeLoadingError said:
    adopted

    Fatty-fatty no-parents!

    I said I was adopted not an orphan.



  • I could splice tags from the Most Used boxes....

    But there's no reasonable condition to check for tag fitness. :\





  • @ais523 said:

    some formats even allow frames to contain deltas backwards from future frames
    AFAIK, all MPEG video formats support this (B-frames), and at least with h.264, the B frames can reference otehr B frames.@ais523 said:
    I'm sure that it wouldn't have been that much larger with a few keyframes added here and there to make it easier to seek...
    Keyframes can be 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than predicted frames.


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