http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla. ... 12d64c4cb9
Well, I can think of more interesting stuff to wade through.
Over the next couple of posts, I'll try to bring some light, where now there is only smoke and mirrors. The story begins when Mozilla discovered that the foremost reason that held users back from updating to the latest Firefox release was that of theme/extension incompatibility. Remember this, it is the key.
So, they decided to try and put the whole lot under their direct control. The first stage of which has been that the Mozilla Labs extension, Personas, will now be built into the 3.6 version of Firefox. The Personas extension has been out over 2 years now and as you can see I was really impressed with it. ....no, seriously, there's no harm in it and themers have been helping users to do stuff like this for years now.
Later or sooner, same will happen with Jetpack, the 'extensions' equivalent.
Personally, I would have tackled any potential theme/extension incompatibility differently. Mozilla are investing 40+ million dollars every year and it's just sitting there doing nothing. If Mozilla wants theme/extension writers to update prior to release, then take a damn interest in them! Give them $50 each, ask how Mozilla can help, give them Mac and Linux testbeds to test on. Write to them properly and help them and encourage them!
Instead, they are treated like second class citizens who should be grateful that the God Mozilla sees fit to even host their stuff and think that they will all fall to their knees in gratitude for a $5 Mozilla T shirt! Treat people with respect and the AMO theme and extension updates will happen.
But, Frank...'Personas is merely extending user choice, isn't it?' You think? -
What does Connor mean by - 'As well, there has been signficant interest from various potential partners in providing content via this channel.'
https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Mconnor/PersonasUplift
Lucy wrote:Also, just because something is no longer needed doesn't mean it was a waste of your time. For 5 (or 9) years you were doing something very useful, especially to people who use your themes. IMO it's only a waste if you keep doing it after no one wants it.
So, let's examine this '...no one wants it' part, as some seem to imply that Themes are not popular amongst Firefox users. Well, I say some, obviously that includes Asa 'Bing' Dotzler and Asa 'Not Bing' Dotzler who didn't even bother to mention the 400+ fully functional Themes hosted on Addons, here!
The answer, indirectly, lies here on Comment 75. -
Dave Townsend wrote:Pardal Freudenthal wrote:Asa Dotzler wrote:>> Yeah, maybe for the relatively small number of theme users we have
>> today. What percentage are they of the 1.5 billion people online or the
>> large portion of that group that would appreciate easy customizations?
>> Or even of the 350 million Firefox users and the several hundred million
>> more we'll have over the next couple of years?
> I suppose your statement is based on AMO statistics.
> There are two bugs concerning those statistics:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=384084
> and:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402796
> At this last one there are reports about the counter not showing the
> real numbers.
Actually neither of these, we can see how many users have themes
installed and even how many users are using a non-default theme based on
the update pings. The numbers as of September of last year are that
around 7% (6.7 million) of Firefox users were using a non-default theme.
Of course it is difficult to extrapolate up from that number to the 1.5
billion of people online that Asa refers to. My expectation would be
that the percentage would drop as we gain more and more less technical
users.
By all means read that second Bug Report link, but look at the text that I bolded. This tells us that 7% or around 7 million Firefox users are active daily users of third party themes. So what?
Well, for a start it means that the active daily user base of Firefox is around 100 million and not 350 million, but also - these are the Personas metrics -
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4871/sn0161.png
This means - That despite Mozilla bringing out Personas over 2 years ago, despite Mozilla actively and heavily promoting Personas everywhere for 18 months, that despite Mozilla hiding the Themes section in the remotest location on AMO that they could find that still Personas only has 2% or 2 million Active Daily users (many of whom would be using these on non-default themes)
This means that Third Party Firefox themes are almost THREE AND A HALF times more popular than Personas with Firefox users.
Lucy wrote:... IMO it's only a waste if you keep doing it after no one wants it.
Now, Personas in Firefox 3.6 will only work with the default theme. Now, in Firefox 3.6 the 'Get Themes' link in the Addons Manager goes to, er, the Personas website.
Even so, Firefox themers are not opposed to the existence of Personas. Not opposed to Mozilla promoting them. What Firefox themers ask for is a level playing field where the Firefox user is given equal opportunity to make their own choice and not have that choice made for them by Mozilla. ....and also not bringing out every Mozilla brawler, thug and troll to badmouth Firefox themes would be pretty nice as well. Still, I'm sure that with a little give and take on both sides that this will all turn out well, in the end.
Until my next post, I'll leave you with this thought by Pastor Martin Niemöller -
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out.