Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

On Aug 16, 4:10 pm, Matt <[email protected]> wrote:
> Asa,
> Regardless of the outcome of this decision, you have driven away
> another Firefox user and proponent today. Honestly, a change to the
> About window isn't a terribly big deal in the grand scheme of things,
> but the attitude that I've seen in this "discussion" is simply
> unacceptable. If there is an outcry from your technical user-base
> about a proposed change, you should think long and hard before you do
> it, regardless of what it is. The attitude of "this is going to happen
> no matter what you users say because we know better," that I've seen
> over this trivial change to an about menu tells me as a user that you
> couldn't care less what I think. That doesn't sit well with me.

While I for one am not going to leave Firefox... just yet anyway... I
most definitely second Matt's feelings otherwise.

Speaking as someone who has founded and led open-source projects (Java
Web Parts, Datavision, PocketFrog to name a few) as well as having
contributed to a number of others to varying degrees (Struts, Apache
Commons, DWR to name a few) I'm more than familiar with how such
projects run, how to interact as part of a community, with what works
and what doesn't.  To be sure, I've certainly made my fair share of
mistakes in learning that along the way, I've had some hard lessons at
times.  Being respectful of others, most especially those that express
an opinion contrary to yours, is probably the #1 rule.  Asa, you
haven't done a good job in that regard here, in at least a few
instances.

Further, not seriously considering the expressed thoughts of your
community is a close #2 rule.  It's not like we've seen a 50-50 mix of
opinions here Asa... nearly everyone is against this change, and I'm
not sure I've seen anyone but you that's actually FOR it... everyone
else seems to just kind of accept it... and if you look at the
comments elsewhere that this change was reported on you see a similar
pattern: probably 85% against, maybe 5% in favor and 10% of the "meh,
whatever" variety.

You simply can't be an effective leader in an open-source environment
if you ignore 85% of the people expressing the same opinion.  It
ceases being a community at that point at all in fact.

You can deflect all you want by saying this or that is off-topic, you
can be condescending and have a "father knows best" attitude and
ultimately you can make whatever decision you want because you're in
charge.  But don't for a second think you aren't doing irreparable
harm to the community that has made Firefox the success it is in the
process.  You may well find that you get zero comments on changes in
the future because there's nobody left around to comment.

Frank

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Frank W. Zammetti
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