Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

Re: addon breakages and the rapid release cycle

This is off-topic, not that much of one is left here, though I do
understand that this issue is a larger point that's bringing up more
of the frustration shown here.

I do feel the need to point out that whilst the version number is
going up faster and improvements are getting out to users faster,
addons aren't actually loosing hard compatibility faster. The Mozilla
Addons site team has been working hard on pushing automatic
compatibility bumps for addons with the so called "paper
incompatibility" where an addon can really work fine, but it just
doesn't know it. This only applies to addons.mozilla.org hosted
addons, however. Also, in the past months I have seen multiple re-
implementations of APIs that were removed added back in a form for the
sole purpose of allowing addons to continue to work in newer versions
to give more time to update to the newer APIs. This almost never
happened before and is becoming increasingly common. Things are
actually becoming more stable for addon compatibility as we move
forward. There were just a few quite noticeable growing pains at first
and more work still needs to be done. (e.g. with respect to outside
vendors such as with the A/V addon mentioned by Ordinant)