Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

On 8/16/2011 10:13 AM, Matt Brubeck wrote:
> On 08/15/2011 11:52 AM, Tyler Downer wrote:
>> Asa, would you mind clearly, and with supporting data, tests, metrics,
>> show What problem this is addressing, Who is affected by it, What our
>> goal is (long-term and short-term, and not generic terms like "getting
>> rid of versions") and How this solution addresses the problem better
>> than the solutions we already have in place.
>
> I'll try to answer some of this, at least the parts I understand. I'm a
> Mozilla employee but not a member of the UX or Product Management teams.
> I can't talk for those teams, but I can give my own opinions, and my own
> understanding of what they've explained previously.
>
> First, let me describe a similar situation:
>
> Before I started working on Firefox full-time, I worked at Amazon.com.
> Amazon's process is a lot like the new Chrome/Firefox release cycle. My
> team deployed a new version of our site every four weeks, with a
> staggered process where new versions first spent time on our dev and
> staging channels before going out to the production site.
>
> Each bit of software deployed to the site gets a new version number
> every time it was rebuilt. Many packages had versions in the hundreds or
> thousands. Of course, our customers never knew or cared about the
> version numbers.
>
> Now, a hypothetical question:
>
> If someone proposed adding a version number to our web site and
> publishing it where customers could see it, would this be a good idea?
> My answer is no. Some of our corporate customers might have liked it;
> they spent time filing support tickets, and liked to have the maximum
> amount of data about everything we did. But ultimately it would have led
> to more questions than it answered, would cause customers to notice
> updates that didn't really affect them (and wouldn't be noticed
> otherwise), and would have been mostly useless because customers
> couldn't choose which version was deployed to which channel anyway.
>
> Many people in this newsgroup have correctly pointed out differences
> between a web site and a client-side application. But Chrome and Firefox
> have both started moving to a model where many of the same reasons
> apply. Except for the rare user who has a good reason to run old
> insecure software, all users should be on one of the supported channels
> and cannot choose which version is deployed to that channel. Normal
> users are not affected by what number appears in the UA string, and
> shouldn't have to care. In a hypothetical world where the version number
> had never been displayed to users to begin with, suddenly adding it
> would generate more questions than it answered.
>
> I hope that explains some of the goals and reasons behind this decision.
> Does that mean I agree with the decision? I'm not sure.
>
> We're not in my hypothetical world. Here in the real world, many users
> do expect client-side software to have version numbers, and to find the
> number in a particular place. By proposing a change like this, we may
> have the opposite of the intended effect: We are focusing *more*
> attention on the version number, and making the transition to rapid
> release *less* seamless.
>
> Now, I do think this controversy is a bit overblown. Normal users never
> or rarely look at the About box, so whether we change it or not, the
> real impact on users is mostly zero. But for users who do look in the
> About box for the version (and this thread provides many reasons they
> will continue to do this) changing it may cause more awareness and
> anxiety about versions and the release cycle than if we just left it
> unchanged.
>
> For contrast, look at Chrome which has been doing rapid releases for
> over a year, and has successfully removed versions from their press
> releases and web sites, and to a large extent from their users'
> awareness. But they still have a version number in their About box.
> Chrome users often note that the version number is still easy to find
> when you need it, but you normally never need it. That seems like the
> perfect balance to me.

Thanks for the explanation.  For those of us who try to do user support 
for Firefox, making sure we are 'on the same page' as the user, who may 
have downloaded a beta version, then stopped updating, it is very 
important to know just what version/build id the user is on in order to 
give good answers.  Users are prone to doing some very strange things, 
and it is often difficult to figure out just what is going on when he 
can't tell us what version/build id he is using.  Little benefit is 
gained giving answers to a user of FF4 when we think he is on FF6.  If 
everyone always updated to the latest release version, the problem would 
be minimal, but this is definitely NOT the case.

And while I am on the subject, should be be a 'chem-spill' situation, 
how would the updated version be presented?  Would it have a version 
number like 6.01, or would it be just '6'?  Support would NEED to know 
this information.