Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

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sabret00the
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by sabret00the »

LoudNoise wrote:
sabret00the wrote:
I'll be the first to admit that the community, at least here hasn't made it easy by creating a hostile reception to the Mozilla staff


Part of our remit is being an advocacy site. By the time controversial things hit these pages folks have pretty well tried normal avenues and are sincerely pissed off. Since our moderation philosophy has always been more a matter of corralling rather then strictly defining "Constructive feedback" things can get heated. Mozilla's weakness for stuff like what Frank quoted here viewtopic.php?p=12803021#p12803021 doesn't exactly inspire a get deal of confidence nor is it usual. Such is life.

No matter how you look at it, there's no need to be rude or condone being rude. Heated debates are one thing, being rude another. Though I raised this point in another thread and so let's agree to disagree.

WLS wrote:Sorry, I don't think your message follows the intent of the new mailing list. Nothing constructive

Nothing constructive, and your type of off-topic message was one of the reasons the mailing list was created.

Your opinion probably varies.

I don't think it's possible to make a constructive counter-argument without data to argue against. Currently, we've got a situation of "we want to do x because of y" and y isn't a logical grounded argument. It's a baseless desire.

In all fairness to me, and anyone else that may have sent an email to the list after being directed to via the bug, it was upon direction. No one got up and suddenly decided to start hounding the mailing list.

Indeed, but alas.

As things stand, this process just isn't being handled correctly. As I asked in my email, is there actually data to support that more users render the browser unusable via customisation than users that customise the browser and continue to use it happily? I'd argue that should be the foundation of any sort of decision in this regards.
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Frank Lion
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by Frank Lion »

sabret00the wrote:No matter how you look at it, there's no need to be rude or condone being rude. Heated debates are one thing, being rude another. Though I raised this point in another thread ...

Yeah? I don't remember, got an example of this rudeness?
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marty60
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by marty60 »

In the latest from the "Let's finish the job of turning Firefox into Chrome" saga Conley appears to be walking it back a little:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860814#c3

Wouldn't be surprising if even some of his fellow developers weren't too happy with it. There's just something about Conley and jaws having these midnight meetings and making such breathtaking decisions that doesn't sit right. Seems like there should be more community input.
phuzi0n
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by phuzi0n »

marty60 wrote:In the latest from the "Let's finish the job of turning Firefox into Chrome" saga Conley appears to be walking it back a little:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860814#c3

Wouldn't be surprising if even some of his fellow developers weren't too happy with it. There's just something about Conley and jaws having these midnight meetings and making such breathtaking decisions that doesn't sit right. Seems like there should be more community input.

I think you meant to link comment 7. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860814#c7

Hopefully they will outline the entire migration plan and have input from more than just 2 devs before landing any of it. And if they're going to break everything and slowly rebuild it then they better wait until after the next ESR so that they actually have time to rebuild it all before the next next ESR.
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Devs don't usually consider the ESR as a pausing point for breaking changes.. if anything their thinking would be to land the changes as soon as possible in order to get onto the ESR.
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SaphirJD
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by SaphirJD »

So.. we are getting closer and closer to the Google Chrome 1:1 copy dream of the Mozilla Devs.. Fine... Then Mozilla can slowly say goodbye to quite a lot of Firefox's marketshare :D
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by patrickjdempsey »

That logic would only hold true if there was a reasonable alternative. It's not like people who don't like that Firefox is turning into Chrome are going to move to Chrome.
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marty60
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by marty60 »

phuzi0n wrote:Hopefully they will outline the entire migration plan and have input from more than just 2 devs before landing any of it. And if they're going to break everything and slowly rebuild it then they better wait until after the next ESR so that they actually have time to rebuild it all before the next next ESR.


It would be nice if they waited until at least v25 to implement it considering it's their little pet project that I see few begging for. For me Firefox is perfectly fine the way it is.
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Omega X
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by Omega X »

patrickjdempsey wrote:Devs don't usually consider the ESR as a pausing point for breaking changes.. if anything their thinking would be to land the changes as soon as possible in order to get onto the ESR.



It depends on the change. If its too disruptive, they wait until after ESR.
SaphirJD
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by SaphirJD »

patrickjdempsey Well, on the Other side, if we really get a clone Browser... People also have to ask the question why using a clone when they also can have the original. And there are quite some other possible alternatives around, at least for a Windows User, that Comodo Ice Dragon, Waterfox or Palemoon.

Let us be serious.. Who of us uses Firefox only because of the Performance. If they take away the ability to customize the browser as we can right now and like in the past, there is seriously no reason to stay with Firefox anylonger.

And at least that Palemoon Mainainer has said that it is not planned to take the Australis Customization into Palemoon, at least i have read something like that in the Palemoon Boards.
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Frank Lion
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by Frank Lion »

patrickjdempsey wrote:That logic would only hold true if there was a reasonable alternative. It's not like people who don't like that Firefox is turning into Chrome are going to move to Chrome.

There already are real alternatives - the Linux forks, such as Ice Weasel.

The Linux movement not only carries with it the reality of the Open Source movement, but the ethics of it as well. They also have vast resources of expertise not only on Linux, but of forking existing Linux software to Windows, i.e. Gimp, etc.

So...Chrome becomes irrelevant in this. If Firefox decides to abandon what should be its true goal of being the best browser going and instead thinks it is going to retain users simply because there is no viable alternative to it, then they need to think again.

Remember, Firefox came from nothing in 2003 and alternatives can do the same.
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by patrickjdempsey »

The problem is that this isn't a real-time discussion. Mozilla considers this a long-dead issue, which is why Mike will just ignore other dev's hesitations about it. The designs for this were put together TWO YEARS ago, and work on bits and pieces of Australis have been landing ever since. There was never a *real* opportunity for dissent from anyone not involved in planning and design meetings with Horlander, and despite all of the press about curved tabs, nobody wanted to *really* let the cat out of the bag about the crippled Customization interface planned from the beginning. And don't try to tell me that this is a recent design change... the gear button thing has been in the Australis mockups from the start, but nobody understood how to interpret it until the Customization mockup landed on UX. There's really no point in getting mad with the people implementing the design... what I want to know is who told Steven to put that in the mockup? and where are these conversations about real extreme changes in the browser design and interface functionality really happening?
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Omega X
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good thread (please ignore)

Post by Omega X »

Where else? Behind closed doors.
Ripdog
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by Ripdog »

I made a post to reddit.com/r/Firefox. https://eddit./firefox/comments/1cl352/ ... _firefoxs/

If you use reddit, please upvote and comment!

Oh, and Mike Conley is there. (Please don't drive him away from reddit, this is one of the few unmoderated ways we can contact him publicly!)
Ripdog
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Re: Australis customization (or lack of thereof)

Post by Ripdog »

Excuse me? Mike Conley, you know, the guy who wrote https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860814#c3 and https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2013-April/000198.html?

I'm sorry you don't like reddit, but if you actually want anything to be done about this then you might want to get over there and actually, you know, talk to one of the guys in charge of this, rather than sitting here and circlejerking forever.
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