Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

Tony Mechelynck wrote:

> As a triager, I've seen bugs at bugzilla.mozilla.org which had been
> reported using Internet Explorer. In that's case it's obvious that the
> bug is not reported about the browser whose UA string is on top of
> comment #0, and, if the reporter didn't think of it, we can ask for a
> copy-paste of the last line of the about: page (the one with the
> user-agent string) from the buggy browser.
>
> However, I've also seen bugs reported about one version of Firefox or
> SeaMonkey, after upgrading (or sometimes downgrading) to a different
> version of the same browser, than the one with the bug. In that case
> it's not so obvious, and we may try reproducing the bug... on a version
> other than the buggy one, and failing because of that.
>
> Even if the reporter thinks of mentioning that the buggy version is not
> the one being used to report the bug, we need to know (as exactly as
> possible) which version was the buggy one. If the reporter knows which
> version had the bug (because he remembers having seen it on the about
> page), he'll hopefully mention it. If he doesn't know it, it's lost, so
> yes, in some cases (which are perhaps marginal, but they exist) hiding
> the version from the average user (by moving it to someplace where it
> won't be obvious to him) does make bug solving more difficult.
>
> And about an "uninstall entry", I don't know about Windows, but on Mac
> OS X (where uninstalling happens by dragging the old version to the
> dustbin) or on Linux (where uninstalling happens by removing the
> installation directory and all its contents, typically by typing
>
> rm -Rvf /usr/local/firefox
>
> at a shell prompt, there _is_ no record left of that uninstall once the
> Mac OS X dustbin has been emptied or, on Linux, as soon as the uninstall
> is done.


I too have triaged bugs in Bugzilla. As a matter of fact, I pretty much 
invented volunteer triage in Bugzilla. So, I can certainly put myself in 
your shoes and I can imagine a few cases where we might get a less good 
bug report by not having the version number in the About dialog.

But, I think we're actually getting a much better class of bugs overall 
by directing users consistently to use the Troubleshooting page and by 
offering other not-Bugzilla feedback mechanisms for the kind of person 
who isn't going to understand what we need in a bug report or how to get 
information from the Troubleshooting page.

If this is not the case, then we should be focused on improving the web 
tools to automatically or through specific requests, get us better 
information -- and not sweating the edge cases.

- A