Re: My usability experience - Asa Dotzler should be fired

> > Asa Dotzler should be fired
>
> Once you're done insulting the very people who created Firefox in the
> first place, can we come back to constructive debates and talking about
> how we actually can make the future better and bring openness,
> innovation and opportunity on the web to users as fast and efficiently
> as possible?

Having read through all the various threads on this on various
sites, newsgroups and bugzilla, I've come to the impression
that such a debate is impossibe. Asa has decided that the
opinion of "power users" don't matter (negative remarks about
Slasdot users), through the IT press he's communicated he
doesn't give a sh*t about the enterprise including IBM,
previously he's alienated Mozillas main financial contributor.
He also doesn't appear to read IT press on all this.

As far as what I've read, the only input Asa really accepts
is the browser statistics. And sadly he's wrong here, too.
That most people moved from FF4 to FF5 is *not* a sign
that people like the rapid release cycle or the new browser
version. It's the consequence of installing the update against
the users will even if they had automatic updates turned off.
These statistics do not take into account the number of
people who after this encounter have *uninstalled* Firefox.

In a fast moving market like that of web browsers, waiting
to realize that you might be on the wrong path until your
market share drops is not a clever thing to do. In such
a market you need to listen carefully.The signs that
something is rotten with Asa's strategy for the product
really couldn't be that more visible.

And in all debates on rapid deployment, on UI changes and
now this version number stuff he's pretty much contributed
to the debate in a kind of "we do it the way I want" and
"you can debate all you want, but I still will do it the way
I want" kind of way.

Asa doesn't listen to the users, the power users, the
enterprise, the IT press, nor his fellow developers. He thinks
he's right and that everyone else will one day realize his
strategy was correct. I doubt that this is going to happen.

I therefore think a constructive debate that actually is allowed to
have a change of direction as a result and not a waste of
time will require Asa to no longer be product manager of
Firefox.

And that's why I think Asa needs to be fired. If combined
with a somewhat good PR strategy, this move could also be
used to get back some confidence inside the markets.
I'm pretty sure there would be quite some relief for those
who got alienated by Asa, and this would give Mozilla
some time to actually discuss and develop a new
strategy.