Version number changes for Thunderbird
Mark Banner
Whilst we could have kept the same numbering system, or adopted a different one, we felt that matching Firefox would make it clearer for developers as to which version of Thunderbird was based on which gecko/Firefox version.
We'll also be de-emphasising the version numbers in our releases, it is much more important that users keep up to date with the latest security and stability fixes, and of course latest improvements, than being concerned that a jump from one number to the next is a big jump.
Therefore, we will be renumbering the current work in progress releases as follows:
- Thunderbird 3.3 (aka Miramar) will become Thunderbird 5.0
(based on gecko 5.0).
- The builds which will be produced from comm-aurora (where we merged to last Tuesday), will become Thunderbird 6.0.
- The builds from comm-central which are currently numbered 3.4a1pre will become Thunderbird 7.0.
Jonathan Protzenko
Does that mean that patches recently merged into comm-miramar will have
to merged into comm-aurora as well for them to be taken into account
for Thunderbird 6?
jonathan
On Thu 26 May 2011 08:06:50 PM CEST, Mark Banner wrote:
> Following several discussions, the Thunderbird drivers have decided to
> adopt the same version numbering scheme that Firefox has adopted
> <http://mozilla.github.com/process-releases/draft/development_specifics/#versioning>
> following the transition to the rapid release process. This also means
> that Thundebird will match its version numbers with the gecko version
> numbers.
>
> Whilst we could have kept the same numbering system, or adopted a
> different one, we felt that matching Firefox would make it clearer for
> developers as to which version of Thunderbird was based on which
> gecko/Firefox version.
>
> We'll also be de-emphasising the version numbers in our releases, it is
> much more important that users keep up to date with the latest security
> and stability fixes, and of course latest improvements, than being
> concerned that a jump from one number to the next is a big jump.
>
> Therefore, we will be renumbering the current work in progress releases
> as follows:
>
> * Thunderbird 3.3 (aka Miramar) will become Thunderbird 5.0 (based on
> gecko 5.0).
> * The builds which will be produced from comm-aurora (where we merged
> to last Tuesday), will become Thunderbird 6.0.
> * The builds from comm-central which are currently numbered 3.4a1pre
> will become Thunderbird 7.0.
>
> Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tb-planning mailing list
> tb-pl...@mozilla.org
> https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
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https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning
Karsten Düsterloh
> Whilst we could have kept the same numbering system, or adopted a
> different one, we felt that matching Firefox would make it clearer
> for developers as to which version of Thunderbird was based on which
> gecko/Firefox version.
I outright doubt that this is solving any real-world problem.
Chrome-angst-driven version number frenzy might make (very limited, IMO)
sense for a competing browser, but do users really care about the Gecko
version of their _mail_ client?
I do understand, though, the assumed marketing "value" of pairing the
version number with FF. I just think it's nonsense. ;-)
> We'll also be de-emphasising the version numbers in our releases,
Well, you may do, but will the users? ;-)
Karsten
Rafael Ebron
On 5/26/11 3:06 PM, Karsten Düsterloh wrote:
> Mark Banner aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>> Whilst we could have kept the same numbering system, or adopted a
>> different one, we felt that matching Firefox would make it clearer
>> for developers as to which version of Thunderbird was based on which
>> gecko/Firefox version.
> I outright doubt that this is solving any real-world problem.
>
> Chrome-angst-driven version number frenzy might make (very limited, IMO)
> sense for a competing browser, but do users really care about the Gecko
> version of their _mail_ client?
>
> I do understand, though, the assumed marketing "value" of pairing the
> version number with FF. I just think it's nonsense. ;-)
>
>> We'll also be de-emphasising the version numbers in our releases,
> Well, you may do, but will the users? ;-)
As you mention users don't care about the Gecko version of their mail
client. Majority of users don't pay attention to versions at all -- OS,
browser, mail client, other software.
It'll be "Thunderbird" in our marketing going forward rather than
"Thunderbird [version]"
-Rafael
Thomas Düllmann
informative communication channel, and hi to everyone known and unknown.
It's unfortunate I'm starting out here with a critical post, furthermore
it's somewhat emotional (blame it on the late time of the day, and
reduce the severity of the message accordingly after reading), but
anyway, here's my comment on the version number changes planned for TB:
My whole-hearted agreement on Karsten's scepticism against the new
versioning intentions.
Thunderbird is not known for moving very fast in its development, and
where it has moved fast (as in the case of the new global search, or
maybe the quick filter bar), it has left a desert of UI problems and
desiderata that are unsolved to this day. My suspicion is that the
merging of MozMessaging with MozLabs with the intention of developing
new phantastic products to cover the full range of today's communication
channels will not exactly improve the manpower situation for core
Thunderbird without bells and whistles, on the contrary. The language in
that announcement seems way too defensive to be fully trusted...
Fast development trains will only help if there is sufficient manpower
to actually develop, instead of a dependence on God-sent volunteer
contributors like Jim who is currently restoring big chunks of one
largely neglected and deteriorated core functionality of TB: attachments
UI. While other deteriorated corners will continue to languish, although
concepts and suggestions are mostly out on the table.
What I am trying to say is that exploding version numbers that do not
reflect actual feature changes that are relevant to the user (which
Gecko versions are not) will add insult to injury from a normal users
perspective:
While version numbers will be rocketing skywards under the new scheme
(starting with that leap from 3.x to 5), there will be nothing tangible
in terms of bugfixing and UI-improvement / added features that will
actually justify those leaps from the traditional user's viewpoint where
version number changes reflect visible improvments. It is a myth that
version numbers could be de-emphasised, as many of our users are very
aware of version numbers: from painful experience widely documented in
the forums like getsatisfaction, bugzilla etc., they have come to
associate version number changes in Thunderbird with more complications
of workflow, continuous erosion of screen real estate, and other dangers
which overshadow some of the significant improvements that co-occured.
> we felt that matching Firefox would make it clearer
> for developers as to which version of Thunderbird was based on which
> gecko/Firefox version.
That main reason for changing the versioning system starts out all wrong
because it focuses on the small no. of developers rather than the large
userbase. Furthermore, I suppose people that are actually capable of
developing Thunderbird will also be able to find out Tb's gecko version
even if it's not in the title of the product. If I am not mistaken,
finding out the version number used to be as simple as going to help >
about. Why do I care that much? Maybe because it's another one of those
changes in Thunderbird that the world does not need, and that may turn
out to cause more harm than good to an already endangered product.
Imagine Thunderbird 10 and we may still not be able to search all of our
address books in one go - wouldn't that be weird?
I'm not always as pessimistic, most of the time I just find lots of bugs
and suggest improvements, and than patiently wait for some years till
someone picks up on it (or even acknowledges the problem, as in so many
unbelievable keyboard/focus issues). A good indicator of such hopeful
occasions used to be an increase in the version numbers of the product.
With the new suggested versioning system, the version numbers would
become largely meaningless to that regard. Yes, version numbers do
matter and they should not be abused for technical reasons that are
irrelevant for the larger parts of the userbase, or for a false
understanding of marketing that bloats version numbers without improving
the product at the same pace.
Otherwise, with respect to matching FF's version no: So far I naively
assumed that the difference in version numbers between FF and
Thunderbird actually had some truth value with respect to development
(due to differences in manpower, resources, you name it). It may not be
wise to cover up that truth by pretending to be what we are not.
Best wishes and greetings,
Thomas
Roland MoCo Tanglao
Normal Thunderbird users who are non technical are totally confused by
the difference in version numbers between Thunderbird and Firefox AND
often can't tell whether they are running Thunderbird or Firefox.
Therefore from a support point of view, aligning thunderbird and firefox
version numbers and releases is a good thing because it will lead to
less user confusion.
...Roland
Karsten Düsterloh
> Normal Thunderbird users who are non technical are totally confused by
> the difference in version numbers between Thunderbird and Firefox AND
> often can't tell whether they are running Thunderbird or Firefox.
That's a joke, I hope?
> Therefore from a support point of view, aligning thunderbird and firefox
> version numbers and releases is a good thing because it will lead to
> less user confusion.
If you can't differ between two programs with *different* version
numbers, you take away the version number to make it easier to
differentiate?! Huh? Reality check, please?
If you're serious, you should tie program version numbers to OS version
numbers, since those particular users won't understand the difference
anyway.
Sorry for sounding sarcastic,
Ben Bucksch
> We'll also be de-emphasising the version numbers in our releases, it
> is much more important that users keep up to date with the latest
> security and stability fixes, and of course latest improvements, than
> being concerned that a jump from one number to the next is a big jump.
FYI, that *is* an important information, though. There are developers
and companies with big deployments which need to know how much work they
have to expect, due to API and profile file changes, UI changes etc..
Question: Will we end up with Thunderbird 15 in a year's time (and TB 25
in 2 years), or what's the plan?
Mark Banner
> What I am trying to say is that exploding version numbers that do not
> reflect actual feature changes that are relevant to the user (which
> Gecko versions are not) will add insult to injury from a normal users
> perspective:
> While version numbers will be rocketing skywards under the new scheme
> (starting with that leap from 3.x to 5), there will be nothing
> tangible in terms of bugfixing and UI-improvement / added features
> that will actually justify those leaps from the traditional user's
> viewpoint where version number changes reflect visible improvments.
number assigned to a particular version of software. Historically, we
have overloaded that version number to imply the size of an upgrade from
one version to the next, and that's what we're challenging.
> It is a myth that version numbers could be de-emphasised, as many of
> our users are very aware of version numbers: from painful experience
> widely documented in the forums like getsatisfaction, bugzilla etc.,
> they have come to associate version number changes in Thunderbird with
> more complications of workflow, continuous erosion of screen real
> estate, and other dangers which overshadow some of the significant
> improvements that co-occured.
certainly indications that the general majority of users don't know
which version they are on. I know of non-tech savy people like this
(though obviously a very small sample), and they are just happy to keep
up to date.
However, like you say, many users are aware of the version numbers. What
they will learn over the first two or three of the new style releases is
that the version number is no longer going to be indicative of the
changes in that version.
> Otherwise, with respect to matching FF's version no: So far I naively
> assumed that the difference in version numbers between FF and
> Thunderbird actually had some truth value with respect to development
> (due to differences in manpower, resources, you name it). It may not
> be wise to cover up that truth by pretending to be what we are not.
We're not pretending, we're changing the meaning of the version numbers,
and our marketing will need to reflect that. We are going to be able to
say that we're rolling out a new release of Thunderbird, which contains
these features, and the latest security updates. IMO that's much better
than saying we're releasing version N and folks assuming the amount and
size of changes in the release based on the increment from the previous
version number.
Mark.
Mark Banner
> Does that mean that patches recently merged into comm-miramar will
> have to merged into comm-aurora as well for them to be taken into
> account for Thunderbird 6?
sure that happens. At the moment, the number of patches in that
situation is small, and I actually think that most of them have made it
onto aurora anyway.
I'm hoping to get the tracking flags etc set up this week.
Mark.
Mark Banner
> On 26.05.2011 20:06, Mark Banner wrote:
>> We'll also be de-emphasising the version numbers in our releases, it
>> is much more important that users keep up to date with the latest
>> security and stability fixes, and of course latest improvements, than
>> being concerned that a jump from one number to the next is a big jump.
>
> FYI, that *is* an important information, though. There are developers
> and companies with big deployments which need to know how much work
> they have to expect, due to API and profile file changes, UI changes
> etc..
increment, then that is going to give a very poor indication of the
amount of work. For example, with the old system, what if we did a
whole-number version bump, but only actually implemented one big new
feature without changing other APIs, and without affecting their
integration. They would assume a lot of work, when in fact it would be
very little.
Likewise, with a minor version bump, we could have changed a lot of
APIs, but not actually implemented many new features, and they would
then have a lot of work to do.
Surely it is better to give the new release some assessment (e.g. a
quick test, brief investigation into the code), rather than rely on a
version number increment?
> Question: Will we end up with Thunderbird 15 in a year's time (and TB
> 25 in 2 years), or what's the plan?
Yes, we'll get numbers that big.
Mark.
Unicorn.Consulting
For what it's worth:
Normal Thunderbird users who are non technical are totally confused by the difference in version numbers between Thunderbird and Firefox AND often can't tell whether they are running Thunderbird or Firefox.
Therefore from a support point of view, aligning thunderbird and firefox version numbers and releases is a good thing because it will lead to less user confusion.
This issue with sky rocketing version numbers will significantly increase the 'another new version and this bug is not fixed' level of dissatisfaction. Users expect change with a new version, even security and bug fix releases. They might not be all that switched on to exactly which version they have, but they do notice when they get one and expectations are high that their personal problem will have been addressed.
The one thing about this that I have not seen discussed anywhere is what it will do to addon comparability checking.
Will add on developers also need to release a new version every 6 weeks?
Will they simply start placing compatibility entries showing 3 to 99?
Will add on developers even bother?
Matt
-- “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
Archaeopteryx
releasing more often (theoretically up to 8 API breaking releases per
year because 52 weeks/year divided through a 6 week branching cycle)
will be a pain for business users because they have to repeat some
work/testing with every release.
So, is Thunderbird's new target group the mail end user or businesses
which use it pretty bare?
Sebastian
Tanstaafl
> The one thing about this that I have not seen discussed anywhere is what
> it will do to addon comparability checking.
> Will add on developers also need to release a new version every 6 weeks?
> Will they simply start placing compatibility entries showing 3 to 99?
> Will add on developers even bother?
I for one think this is silly, and am not looking forward to using
Thunderbird version 35, that isn't much better/different than version
3.1 was...
Come on guys... lets make changes that really matter, not just do
something just because someone else did it.
The second I heard that Firefox was going down this road, I groaned
inside, voicing in my head all of the negatives/downsides that have been
expressed here already.
The argument that users really don't know care what version they are on
is just as strong an argument *against* doing this as it is in favor of
it - but the arguments against it - the above one being one of the more
negatively impactful ones imnsho - are sound and numerous.
Mark Banner
This issue with sky rocketing version numbers will significantly increase the 'another new version and this bug is not fixed' level of dissatisfaction. Users expect change with a new version, even security and bug fix releases. They might not be all that switched on to exactly which version they have, but they do notice when they get one and expectations are high that their personal problem will have been addressed.
The one thing about this that I have not seen discussed anywhere is what it will do to addon comparability checking.
Will add on developers also need to release a new version every 6 weeks?
Will they simply start placing compatibility entries showing 3 to 99?
Will add on developers even bother?
On the whole, I don't think we'd be breaking every extension every six weeks, so it is a lot less work for add on developers to do than first impressions might give. So far I believe the add-on coverage for FF 5 from the automated bump is somewhere around the 75% to 80% mark, which IMO is a pretty good start.
Mark.
Ben Bucksch
>> Question: Will we end up with Thunderbird 15 in a year's time (and TB
>> 25 in 2 years), or what's the plan?
> Yes, we'll get numbers that big.
Don't you think that's ridiculous? I think that's hideous. I don't like
date-base version numbers, but they're still better than "TB 25".
Marketing-wise, that's an even bigger catastrophe: It's not news to
update from TB 26 to TB 27. At the moment, we get newsticker articles
(e.g. on heise.de) when we make a new release. This is PR, this is free
advertising. We will lose that.
So, I think this is a loss-loss path.
Ben
Mark Banner
> On 31.05.2011 12:06, Mark Banner wrote:
>>> Question: Will we end up with Thunderbird 15 in a year's time (and
>>> TB 25 in 2 years), or what's the plan?
>> Yes, we'll get numbers that big.
>
> Don't you think that's ridiculous? I think that's hideous. I don't
> like date-base version numbers, but they're still better than "TB 25".
the rapid release, didn't change the numbering system, and continued
developing Thunderbird for the next 25 years? Would we reset the version
number or change the product name just because the number is getting too
big? I doubt it.
> Marketing-wise, that's an even bigger catastrophe: It's not news to
> update from TB 26 to TB 27. At the moment, we get newsticker articles
> (e.g. on heise.de) when we make a new release. This is PR, this is
> free advertising. We will lose that.
Like Rafael has already said, we're not going to be marketing TB x is
released. We'll be marketing that an update to Thunderbird is released.
We can therefore immediately focus on the fact that we've got new
features, security fixes or whatever.
I'd be pretty surprised if a news site suddenly decided not to tell its
readers about a new version just because the version number got too big.
The news is there's something new/different, not the fact the version
number has changed.
Mark.
Mark Banner
Hi,
releasing more often (theoretically up to 8 API breaking releases per year because 52 weeks/year divided through a 6 week branching cycle)
will be a pain for business users because they have to repeat some work/testing with every release.
So, is Thunderbird's new target group the mail end user or businesses which use it pretty bare?
"Thunderbird will focus on the individual user and Small Office / Home Office (SOHO) market segments."
I believe we haven't affected that focus with moving to rapid releases.
Mark.
Ben Bucksch
> didn't change the numbering system, and continued developing
> Thunderbird for the next 25 years?
In the new system, we'd be at Thunderbird 221. That's not comparable
with reaching "TB 25" in 2 years - in the current system, we'd be at "TB
4.0" or "5.0".
> Like Rafael has already said, we're not going to be marketing TB x is
> released. We'll be marketing that an update to Thunderbird is released.
Yes, but if that happens every 6 weeks, do you think you'll get a
headline each time?
If you have a release that's bigger than the others, it will be hard to
communicate that "this one is significant" to reporters who get a 1000
news items a day and spend 3 seconds or less before deciding whether
it's newsworthy.
> The news is there's something new/different, not the fact the version
> number has changed.
From the news items I've read, few reporters go to that length. Most
just report "there's a new version", and maybe reword parts of your
press / public material of what's new. In the case of 26 -> 27, that
whole headline of "there's a new version" is lacking. You need a
reporter who actually understands the changes, and very few go to that
length.
I'm not saying it's impossible to market that, but that it's *harder* in
the new system to do PR and get news items. So, I'm saying that even
from a marketing perspective, this is worse.
And techies also surely don't like it. So, I don't get it.
Ben Bucksch
May I ask something? What's the purpose of this list? It's called
tb-planning, which implies to me that exactly such decisions would be
discussed here first and *decided* here.
Reality is, however, that this list is just *informed* about certain
decisions (but not even all important developments). It therefore is
degraded to a peanut gallery.
Rafael Ebron
We'll be communicating with reporters the changes and features in
Thunderbird and it'll be feature driven rather than using versions to
drive news. We'll continue to take care of our relationship with the
press and bloggers regarding new releases.
Using versioning in marketing has run its course. From a practical
standpoint, Thunderbird + version number is a sub-brand that we have to
market which takes away from focusing on "Thunderbird". And users care
that they're using the latest Thunderbird, not Thunderbird 3.1.10.
We do need to save users from version marketing. Android, Mac OS X,
Windows, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, iTunes, Ubuntu. Should I
really know that I'm running Android 2.3.4 Cupcake, Gingerbread, Ice
Cream Sandwich; Mac OS X 10.6.7 Lion, Snow Leopard, Hedgehog; Windows
Vista, 7, 8? Ugh!
Our users don't care about version numbers, they care about using
"Thunderbird" and using the latest. And I don't think we should make
them care about software + version numbers.
-Rafael
Blake Winton
> On 26.05.2011 20:06, Mark Banner wrote:
>> Following several discussions, the Thunderbird drivers have decided
> May I ask something? What's the purpose of this list? It's called
> tb-planning, which implies to me that exactly such decisions would be
> discussed here first and *decided* here.
To quote dmose (at some length):
> Until now, we've had two primary discussion forums for driving
> Thunderbird work forward. We've had dev-apps-thunderbird, which is
> theoretically development-focused, but realistically has been fairly
> free form, and populated by folks with an extremely wide variety of
> perspectives. We've also had thunderbird-drivers, which is completely
> private, and populated only by folks who are in the very center of
> pushing releases out the door.
>
> A number of us who participate in both forums have noticed over time
> that there are a non-trivial number of discussions that don't fit
> very well in either place. These are things that need input from a
> significantly larger group of people than the release-drivers (eg
> other core developers, add-on developers, UX wizards), and they also
> benefit generally from having more transparency. However, these
> conversations also need to be drivable to completion without getting
> derailed by emotional outpourings, venting, personal attacks, and
> straw men and also without leaving the participants exhausted and
> frustrated. In other words, it has to actually be _easy_ to get work
> done.
>
> To that end, I've created a tb-planning mailing list as a middle
> ground designed specifically for these sorts of discussions. I've
> written up a wiki page at
> <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/tb-planning> describing the
> list mechanism and rules.
The linked document has a little more info which is, imo, worth reading.
> Reality is, however, that this list is just *informed* about certain
> decisions (but not even all important developments). It therefore is
> degraded to a peanut gallery.
This isn't a place where everyone gets to decide everything about
Thunderbird. It's a place where some of the discussion and decisions
happen. Some other things are decided by a smaller group of people, and
yet other things are forced upon Thunderbird by it's place in the
Mozilla world. (The new release numbering, and rapid release schedule
are examples of the latter two types of things. For examples of the
list discussing and deciding things, I'ld point you at the "blanket
orange fixes", the "SkinkGlue", and the "statusbar removal" threads for
a start.)
Reading Dan's original intentions for the list, I now slightly regret
approving some of the messages in the version number thread, since,
while they contained interesting viewpoints, they generally weren't
helping us get work done. For that matter, the information might have
originally been better expressed in a blog post. Ah well, live and learn.
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird Front End
bwi...@mozilla.com
Karsten Düsterloh
> And users care that they're using the latest Thunderbird, not
> Thunderbird 3.1.10.
Well, do they really?
Since we all just assume certain user expectation, you seem to have hard
data to back your claims?
(And how would anybody know it's „the latest Thunderbird“ without a
version number?)
> We do need to save users from version marketing.
This sentence, at least, is the real culprit:
Obviously, you _do_ know that users care for version numbers, and you
seem to feel that „the competition“ is better at that …
(And while this may even be true for Firefox, I don't see any version
number frenzy in „the mail client market“ (if there'd one at all, that
is).)
> Should I really know that I'm running Android 2.3.4 Cupcake,
> Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich; Mac OS X 10.6.7 Lion, Snow Leopard,
> Hedgehog; Windows Vista, 7, 8? Ugh!
Yes, you should, and you even do elsewhere in reality.
You don't just drive „the latest GM“.
And assuming that everybody will be using the latest version of a
program is naive at best (especially given how many users are still
using TB2, because they don't like TB3).
> Our users don't care about version numbers, they care about using
> "Thunderbird" and using the latest.
Again: proof, assumption, or just wishful thinking?
Karsten
Karsten Düsterloh
> This isn't a place where everyone gets to decide everything about
> Thunderbird.
I don't think anyone expects this, realistically.
But there's a difference between „we're planning X, we would like to
know how you feel about, and announce our decision“ and „we decided X,
and we don't care what you say“.
And there's a difference between „we decided“ and „we were forced“, of
course.
> Reading Dan's original intentions for the list, I now slightly regret
> approving some of the messages in the version number thread, since,
> while they contained interesting viewpoints, they generally weren't
> helping us get work done.
That translates to „sink or swim, you only matter if you agree“?
Karsten
Blake Winton
> Blake Winton aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>> This isn't a place where everyone gets to decide everything about
>> Thunderbird.
> I don't think anyone expects this, realistically.
Well, it's sort of been treated that way for a little while. And it
seems to me like it's worth re-iterating that it's not.
> But there's a difference between „we're planning X, we would like to
> know how you feel about, and announce our decision“ and „we decided X,
> and we don't care what you say“.
I agree, and I think we should keep the "we decided X" posts off this
forum, because there isn't much useful conversation we can have about
them. (On the other hand, the "we're planning X" threads I've read have
been very helpful, and I would like to see more of them.)
> And there's a difference between „we decided“ and „we were forced“, of
> course.
It's hard to tell which side of that difference things fall on
sometimes. :)
>> Reading Dan's original intentions for the list, I now slightly regret
>> approving some of the messages in the version number thread, since,
>> while they contained interesting viewpoints, they generally weren't
>> helping us get work done.
> That translates to „sink or swim, you only matter if you agree“?
For the version number thread, I haven't seen a lot of responses which
are helping us get work done. (And to be clear, I regret approving the
posts which agree with the decision, too, since they don't help us move
forward either.) Out of the 21 posts, I could only find a couple of
constructive ones, and that's not a great ratio…
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird Front End
bwi...@mozilla.com
Rafael Ebron
On 6/1/11 5:11 PM, Karsten Düsterloh wrote:
> Rafael Ebron aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>> And users care that they're using the latest Thunderbird, not
>> Thunderbird 3.1.10.
> Well, do they really?
Yes. For example, Gmail users don't know what version number they're
on. They're just using Gmail. And the Gmail team (and Yahoo and
Hotmail) are able to push features without having to use version
numbers. "Google Chrome" is another example.
> Since we all just assume certain user expectation, you seem to have hard
> data to back your claims?
We have surveys and data. But if we assumed that users want the latest
and greatest software we could give them, is that a bad assumption to make?
> (And how would anybody know it's „the latest Thunderbird“ without a
> version number?)
About Thunderbird. "Thunderbird is up to date".
>
>> We do need to save users from version marketing.
> This sentence, at least, is the real culprit:
> Obviously, you _do_ know that users care for version numbers, and you
> seem to feel that „the competition“ is better at that …
> (And while this may even be true for Firefox, I don't see any version
> number frenzy in „the mail client market“ (if there'd one at all, that
> is).)
No, the obvious part and the competition part are wrong. That was not
the intent of that sentence.
>> Should I really know that I'm running Android 2.3.4 Cupcake,
>> Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich; Mac OS X 10.6.7 Lion, Snow Leopard,
>> Hedgehog; Windows Vista, 7, 8? Ugh!
> Yes, you should, and you even do elsewhere in reality.
No I shouldn't.
Here's some reality. I drive a 2005 BMW X3 not a GM. There's at least
two computers on board, one for driving and one for BMW
Assist/Bluetooth. I can't tell you what OS they run, what version is
running on them, but I can tell you that the last time I went to the
shop, I was updated to the latest versions. Cool. Great.
Just like Ford Sync:
http://www.ford.com/technology/sync/
> You don't just drive „the latest GM“.
> And assuming that everybody will be using the latest version of a
> program is naive at best (especially given how many users are still
> using TB2, because they don't like TB3).
I'm not assuming that everybody will be using the latest version. Plus
we have data. 86.5% of our users are on the latest version of Thunderbird.
>
>> Our users don't care about version numbers, they care about using
>> "Thunderbird" and using the latest.
> Again: proof, assumption, or just wishful thinking?
Experience. Proof. Talking to our users and potential users on a
regular basis.
-Rafael
Leni Mayo
auto-bumping-maxVersion mechanism. I wonder what non-amo-hosted firefox
addons have done to avoid having to release every six weeks.
Leni.
Jim
> Just to note that addons not hosted at AMO won't have access to AMO's
> auto-bumping-maxVersion mechanism. I wonder what non-amo-hosted firefox
> addons have done to avoid having to release every six weeks.
In that case, just set your maxVersion to something huge, like 9999.0. :)
- Jim
Jeff Grossman
> On 11-06-01 20:23 , Karsten Düsterloh wrote:
>> Blake Winton aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>>> This isn't a place where everyone gets to decide everything about
>>> Thunderbird.
>> I don't think anyone expects this, realistically.
>
> Well, it's sort of been treated that way for a little while. And it
> seems to me like it's worth re-iterating that it's not.
>
>> But there's a difference between „we're planning X, we would like to
>> know how you feel about, and announce our decision“ and „we decided X,
>> and we don't care what you say“.
>
> I agree, and I think we should keep the "we decided X" posts off this
> forum, because there isn't much useful conversation we can have about
> them. (On the other hand, the "we're planning X" threads I've read
> have been very helpful, and I would like to see more of them.)
>
I understand they aren't necessarily helping move us forward, but I
think the communication channel needs to continue with the community.
If you decide to stop accepting posts because they are not moving us
forward how is this information going to get out to the community? If
you stop this flow of information you are only hurting the community.
>> And there's a difference between „we decided“ and „we were forced“, of
>> course.
>
> It's hard to tell which side of that difference things fall on
> sometimes. :)
>
>>> Reading Dan's original intentions for the list, I now slightly regret
>>> approving some of the messages in the version number thread, since,
>>> while they contained interesting viewpoints, they generally weren't
>>> helping us get work done.
>> That translates to „sink or swim, you only matter if you agree“?
>
> For the version number thread, I haven't seen a lot of responses which
> are helping us get work done. (And to be clear, I regret approving
> the posts which agree with the decision, too, since they don't help us
> move forward either.) Out of the 21 posts, I could only find a couple
> of constructive ones, and that's not a great ratio…
Like I said, it is a good communication channel. I have not seen any
other Thunderbird communication channel about what is going on. Reading
the weekly agendas really doesn't help much. There is not much detail
there.
I understand the Thunderbird developers are short-staffed and
overworked, but don't remove the one avenue where I think most
communication is happening.
>
> Thanks,
> Blake.
Jeff
Blake Winton
> On 6/1/2011 6:01 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
>> I agree, and I think we should keep the "we decided X" posts off this
>> forum, because there isn't much useful conversation we can have about
>> them. (On the other hand, the "we're planning X" threads I've read
>> have been very helpful, and I would like to see more of them.)
> I understand they aren't necessarily helping move us forward, but I
> think the communication channel needs to continue with the community. If
> you decide to stop accepting posts because they are not moving us
> forward how is this information going to get out to the community? If
> you stop this flow of information you are only hurting the community.
We have a number of other communication channels that I think you will
want to follow, if you want to get the flow of information.
http://planet.mozillamessaging.com/ and the weekly agendas you mention
below seem like the places we should put decisions we make for which
discussion wouldn't be as useful. There's also the
mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird newsgroup, but I don't think that's as
useful for this kind of thing.
I'll let Roland mention some places where we welcome feedback. ;)
>> For the version number thread, I haven't seen a lot of responses which
>> are helping us get work done. (And to be clear, I regret approving the
>> posts which agree with the decision, too, since they don't help us
>> move forward either.) Out of the 21 posts, I could only find a couple
>> of constructive ones, and that's not a great ratio…
> Like I said, it is a good communication channel. I have not seen any
> other Thunderbird communication channel about what is going on. Reading
> the weekly agendas really doesn't help much. There is not much detail
> there.
That is definitely something we should work on, then. Do you have any
suggestions of other places you would want to check? Along those lines,
what do you think about a read-only tb-announce list, where we don't
plan or discuss things, but instead post about decisions that have been
made (either by the tb-planning list, or the drivers, or forced on us by
other projects)?
> I understand the Thunderbird developers are short-staffed and
> overworked, but don't remove the one avenue where I think most
> communication is happening.
I don't want to remove any avenues, but instead open up new places so
that we can discuss the things that need discussion, while still letting
people know about the things that have already been decided without
having everyone waste their time and energy debating them.
If you have other ideas on how we can accomplish that, I would love to
discuss them with you here. :)
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird Front End
bwi...@mozilla.com
Mark Banner
> On 06/01/2011 08:19 PM, Leni Mayo wrote:
>> Just to note that addons not hosted at AMO won't have access to AMO's
>> auto-bumping-maxVersion mechanism. I wonder what non-amo-hosted firefox
>> addons have done to avoid having to release every six weeks.
probably be the ideal. Once a release is on aurora channel we are frozen
in terms of API and feature changes, and so an extension has about 12
weeks before the release of Thunderbird. Since aurora and beta overlap,
it is possible that an author could merge two separate update cycles
into one.
We'll be monitoring the add-ons situation over all the releases and will
be keeping an eye on what is happening there.
> In that case, just set your maxVersion to something huge, like 9999.0. :)
That shouldn't be encouraged unless you're going to guarantee you'll
test each version before a new Thunderbird release. In the past we've
had extensions that have incorrectly declared compatibility and have a
result have totally broken Thunderbird when users have upgraded, and
then we've had to blocklist the bad versions.
Mark.
Ben Bucksch
thanks for your response.
On 02.06.2011 01:10, Rafael Ebron wrote:
> We'll be communicating with reporters the changes and features in
> Thunderbird and it'll be feature driven rather than using versions to
> drive news. We'll continue to take care of our relationship with the
> press and bloggers regarding new releases.
Yes, I'm sure of that, I'm not questioning that.
I just saw that marketing this is harder than marketing "there's a new
major version of big program XYZ out", and they've carried all previous
releases, so this news item is a no-brainer for them. If you watch the
news, most reporters think in simple schemes:
war => news
airplane crash, 120 dead => news
3000 people died because of water shortage because of public utility
privatization => too complex
I fear that "this new feature is more significant than the previous"
might (not necessarily is) be "too complex" because it's not in the
usual schemes. It is definitely *easier* to market a new version 3.3 or
4.0 than a new version number 15.
I just know I thought "OK, again a new Chrome release. Didn't we have
version 11 just a few weeks ago? Now it's 12. Who cares??" I used to be
interested in Chrome. Version 7 still raised eyebrows. Version 12, half
a year later, caused a chuckle. Version 20 will cause either a laugh or
dismissal.
> We do need to save users from version marketing. .... Should I really
> know that I'm running Android 2.3.4 Cupcake, Gingerbread, Ice Cream
> Sandwich
FWIW, as a new owner of an Android tablet and phone, I care *very much*.
I wish very much to get 3.0 on my tablet (and if you followed the news,
you know why I want it [1]). The press is *all over it*. I think you
will lose that press heat when you drop or inflate version numbers.
Ben
[1] "Android 3.0" (3 words) is just faster to say than "the Android that
is optimized for tablets, because it has toolbars and 2 panes, which
makes the apps much more efficient to use, and doesn't need the annoying
tap 'menu' tap 'new window' tap 'menu' tap 'bookmarks' tap 'heise.de'"
(3 lines). I just say "Android 3.0" and everybody who read the recent
news knows what I mean.
Ben Bucksch
> For example, Gmail users don't know what version number they're on.
Have you *ever* read a news item in a major news outlet that headlined
"Gmail has new feature XYZ"? I can't remember any. Oh wait, there was
one: The delete function, after there was an outrage that Gmail didn't
really delete it, and Google had to respond to the public. There is *no*
regular news about Gmail. That's exactly my point.
> We have surveys and data.
Could you share that?
> Here's some reality. I drive a 2005 BMW X3
Right. And while in the US, people say "2005 BMW", we in Europe think in
models. (And that might explain part of this discussion, because cars
are often used as comparison.) I know there were 3 models of Mercedes
C-Class, W202 starting 1994 (IIRC), W203 starting 2000, and W204
starting 2008 IIRC. Once a major new model is released, the old model
drops significantly in price. A used C-Class from 2000 is *a lot* more
worth than one from 1999, because that's the newer model, while 2000 to
2001 almost makes no difference. And that reflects reality, because the
W203 is indeed very different from the W202, while 2000 to 2001 makes
almost no difference.
Rafael Ebron
> On 02.06.2011 03:14, Rafael Ebron wrote:
>> For example, Gmail users don't know what version number they're on.
>> They're just using Gmail. And the Gmail team ... are able to push
>> features without having to use version numbers.
>
> Have you *ever* read a news item in a major news outlet that headlined
> "Gmail has new feature XYZ"? I can't remember any. Oh wait, there was
> one: The delete function, after there was an outrage that Gmail didn't
> really delete it, and Google had to respond to the public. There is
> *no* regular news about Gmail. That's exactly my point.
Tech Outlets
http://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&ncl=dIi0YVehhNzXlrMqf66VhHqYvVgNM
And also my comment about my car wasn't about my car model it was
regarding the software in my car.
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/owners/service/care/accessories_and_software_updates/software_update.html
It sounds like we all should know the operating system and version of
our car software which tells us how fast we're driving, how much gas we
have left, and connects us to things like gps/directions, OnStar, BMW
Assist, etc. I'm glad the car guys aren't making me care. They're
taking care of keeping my software up to date and letting me focus on
driving my car.
-Rafael
Ben Bucksch
> still letting people know about the things that have already been
> decided without having everyone waste their time and energy debating them.
FWIW, I currently do that by just reading the headers (of the thread
starters) of the tb-planning posts. That's why I don't consider
tb-planning to be "noisy".
> We have a number of other communication channels that I think you will
> want to follow, if you want to get the flow of information.
> http://planet.mozillamessaging.com/ and the weekly agendas you mention
FWIW, that doesn't work for me, it costs way too much time. planet has a
hundred contributors posting all kinds of stuff, and agenda has what
each person did each week, I don't need to know that.
I just want to know about important Thunderbird project decisions,
before you made up your mind, and to be able to get involved, if I think
I can give input. I think all important (not day-to-day) decisions
should be discussed on tb-planning first. Project leads may sometimes
veto and not take the majority opinion here, but not even consulting us
is stating that we're irrelevant.
> what do you think about a read-only tb-announce list, where we don't
> plan or discuss things, but instead post about decisions that have
> been made (either by the tb-planning list, or the drivers, or forced
> on us by other projects)?
Sounds like a good idea! I'd call it tb-dev-announce, though.
tb-announce should be targetted at end-users and handled by Rafael and
show the new features in a new release.
Ben Bucksch
Nikolay Shopik
>
> Therefore, we will be renumbering the current work in progress releases
> as follows:
>
> * Thunderbird 3.3 (aka Miramar) will become Thunderbird 5.0 (based on
> gecko 5.0).
> * The builds which will be produced from comm-aurora (where we merged
> to last Tuesday), will become Thunderbird 6.0.
> * The builds from comm-central which are currently numbered 3.4a1pre
> will become Thunderbird 7.0.
Having browser versionless isn't that bad, but email client isn't
suppose to be versionless because standards here isn't moving that fast.
And surface for attack is much less than in browser.
I'm all for bring new features for users faster (Release early, release
often), but in current state/timing it could be bring more damage than good.
Jeff Grossman
> On 11-06-01 21:21 , Jeff Grossman wrote:
>> On 6/1/2011 6:01 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
>>> I agree, and I think we should keep the "we decided X" posts off this
>>> forum, because there isn't much useful conversation we can have about
>>> them. (On the other hand, the "we're planning X" threads I've read
>>> have been very helpful, and I would like to see more of them.)
>> I understand they aren't necessarily helping move us forward, but I
>> think the communication channel needs to continue with the community. If
>> you decide to stop accepting posts because they are not moving us
>> forward how is this information going to get out to the community? If
>> you stop this flow of information you are only hurting the community.
> We have a number of other communication channels that I think you will
> want to follow, if you want to get the flow of information.
> http://planet.mozillamessaging.com/ and the weekly agendas you mention
> below seem like the places we should put decisions we make for which
> discussion wouldn't be as useful. There's also the
> mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird newsgroup, but I don't think that's as
> useful for this kind of thing.
>
> I'll let Roland mention some places where we welcome feedback. ;)
times? Sorry about that.
I always forget about http://planet.mozillamessaging.com. Personally, I
prefer e-mail to all other forms of communication. Newsgroups would be
my second choice. But, I agree, I do not think
mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird would be a very good choice.
>>> For the version number thread, I haven't seen a lot of responses which
>>> are helping us get work done. (And to be clear, I regret approving the
>>> posts which agree with the decision, too, since they don't help us
>>> move forward either.) Out of the 21 posts, I could only find a couple
>>> of constructive ones, and that's not a great ratio…
>> Like I said, it is a good communication channel. I have not seen any
>> other Thunderbird communication channel about what is going on. Reading
>> the weekly agendas really doesn't help much. There is not much detail
>> there.
> That is definitely something we should work on, then. Do you have any
> suggestions of other places you would want to check? Along those
> lines, what do you think about a read-only tb-announce list, where we
> don't plan or discuss things, but instead post about decisions that
> have been made (either by the tb-planning list, or the drivers, or
> forced on us by other projects)?
A tb-announce list that I am able to get via e-mail would be a suitable
option for me. I think you will get a few different opinions about
that, which makes it hard. Some people like e-mail (myself included),
some like newsgroups, and some like web pages.
I will think of some suggestions and let you know. Like I said before,
I just don't think the meeting agendas or planet.mozillamessaging.com
are either updated frequently enough or with enough substance. I will
try to do a better job of following planet.mozillamessaging.com to keep
up with current Thunderbird activities.
>> I understand the Thunderbird developers are short-staffed and
>> overworked, but don't remove the one avenue where I think most
>> communication is happening.
>
> I don't want to remove any avenues, but instead open up new places so
> that we can discuss the things that need discussion, while still
> letting people know about the things that have already been decided
> without having everyone waste their time and energy debating them.
>
> If you have other ideas on how we can accomplish that, I would love to
> discuss them with you here. :)
I am in complete agreement with you. Let's open up new avenues of
discussion where a discussion needs to take place. Otherwise, let's
have a steady flow of information from the Thunderbird developers about
the direction of the project.
>
> Thanks,
> Blake.
Blake thank you for your time.
Jeff
Jonathan Protzenko
Don't forget https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/CommunicationChannels
which I wrote specifically to keep track of all our communication channels.
jonathan
Ben Bucksch
> On 02.06.2011 04:00, Blake Winton wrote:
>
> planet has a hundred contributors posting all kinds of stuff
Sorry, I read that as "Planet Mozilla". I will add
planet.mozillamessaging.com to my TB RSS reader.
Ben
Mark Banner
>> But there's a difference between „we're planning X, we would like to
>> know how you feel about, and announce our decision“ and „we decided X,
>> and we don't care what you say“.
>
> I agree, and I think we should keep the "we decided X" posts off this
> forum, because there isn't much useful conversation we can have about
> them. (On the other hand, the "we're planning X" threads I've read
> have been very helpful, and I would like to see more of them.)
>
they are actually planning related. In the case of the version
information, we needed to announce it to developers and the closer
Thunderbird community (so that they would know what is happening with
the change of version numbers), and before we had time/opportunity to
announce it to the wider audience.
I'm also well aware that not everyone reads the blog posts that we do or
the status meeting minutes, so having it in multiple places including
tb-planning seems better. You also see exactly this happening with
various things that get messaged on mozilla.dev.planning.
My concern with a separate announce list is that it would mean that we'd
end up with two lists for everyone interested to subscribe to. It would
also mean that people couldn't as easily ask a quick question if there's
something that is ambiguous or needs more detail in the announcement,
although in that case they might end-up asking on tb-planning anyway.
Mark.
Jeff Grossman
> On 02.06.2011 14:29, Ben Bucksch wrote:
>> On 02.06.2011 04:00, Blake Winton wrote:
>>> http://planet.mozillamessaging.com
>>
>> planet has a hundred contributors posting all kinds of stuff
>
> Sorry, I read that as "Planet Mozilla". I will add
> planet.mozillamessaging.com to my TB RSS reader.
>
> Ben
>
planet.mozilla.org. The latter contains way too many feeds that I am
just not interested in.
Jeff
Jeff Grossman
The moderation part of tb-planning worries me a little bit in this
regard though. Luckily Blake has not cancelled any posts (or at least I
have not seen it) which he feels should not be dealt with here. But, he
has said that he feels he went and approved too many posts already that
should not have been approved because they are not moving the project
further. If something would be announced on the announce list, but
somebody felt like they needed to discuss it and brought it here to
tb-planning and Blake (or the moderators in this case) decided to cancel
the post because it was a decision already made that does not need any
discussion, then there is no avenue to discuss the change that was
announced. (Sorry for that run on sentence).
I think we should keep tb-planning and use it as much as possible to
keep these types of discussions alive. I understand that some of the
announcements might not be up for debate as such, but it still good to
hear about other peoples opinions that might not have been thought off.
Decisions that are made can always be changed if it is for the better of
the project.
Jeff
Blake Winton
> On 6/2/2011 6:14 AM, Mark Banner wrote:
>> The reason I use tb-planning for a lot of these things, is that
>> because they are actually planning related. In the case of the version
>> information, we needed to announce it to developers and the closer
>> Thunderbird community (so that they would know what is happening with
>> the change of version numbers), and before we had time/opportunity to
>> announce it to the wider audience.
>>
> regard though. Luckily Blake has not cancelled any posts (or at least I
> have not seen it) which he feels should not be dealt with here. But, he
> has said that he feels he went and approved too many posts already that
> should not have been approved because they are not moving the project
> further.
Fortunately for everyone, I'm not the only moderator. :) That's
important because the other moderators don't necessarily agree with me,
and most of the messages in the thread were moderated by them, so even
if I cancelled all the posts I came across, it wouldn't have changed
that much.
> If something would be announced on the announce list, but
> somebody felt like they needed to discuss it and brought it here to
> tb-planning and Blake (or the moderators in this case) decided to cancel
> the post because it was a decision already made that does not need any
> discussion, then there is no avenue to discuss the change that was
> announced. (Sorry for that run on sentence).
Well, there would still be your own blog, mdat, Mozillazine,
GetSatisfaction… ;) But yes, I see your point.
> I think we should keep tb-planning and use it as much as possible to
> keep these types of discussions alive. I understand that some of the
> announcements might not be up for debate as such, but it still good to
> hear about other peoples opinions that might not have been thought off.
> Decisions that are made can always be changed if it is for the better of
> the project.
Yeah, perhaps the best idea _is_ to keep tb-planning the way it is,
mostly. What do you all think about keeping tb-planning mostly open,
but asking people to re-write their posts if they aren't adding useful
information? (i.e. new opinions and facts would be welcomed, but "me
too" posts and posts which are just complaining and not offering
suggestions would be asked to be re-written?)
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird Front End
bwi...@mozilla.com
Jeff Grossman
On 6/1/2011 11:39 AM, Nikolay Shopik wrote:
> On 26.05.2011 22:06, Mark Banner wrote:
>>
>> Therefore, we will be renumbering the current work in progress releases
>> as follows:
>>
>> * Thunderbird 3.3 (aka Miramar) will become Thunderbird 5.0 (based on
>> gecko 5.0).
>> * The builds which will be produced from comm-aurora (where we merged
>> to last Tuesday), will become Thunderbird 6.0.
>> * The builds from comm-central which are currently numbered 3.4a1pre
>> will become Thunderbird 7.0.
>
> Having browser versionless isn't that bad, but email client isn't
> suppose to be versionless because standards here isn't moving that
> fast. And surface for attack is much less than in browser.
>
> I'm all for bring new features for users faster (Release early,
> release often), but in current state/timing it could be bring more
> damage than good.
>
I am not sure I agree with that 100%. I think as more people/companies
are moving to e-mail marketing using HTML and XHTML, we need to make
sure the HTML/XHTML (Gecko in this case) is always kept as up to date as
possible. The only way to do that is to keep upgrading Thunderbird in
connection with Gecko.
Jeff
Jeff Grossman
> Hi,
>
> Don't forget
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/CommunicationChannels which I
> wrote specifically to keep track of all our communication channels.
>
> jonathan
Two points about that. We need to make sure that gets out more often.
Maybe add it to the footer of these messages, probably not a good idea,
just a thought though. And point number two, do you see how many
different areas there are for information? That needs to get cut down
for it to be effective. There is no way we can expect people to monitor
all of those avenues of discussion.
Joshua Cranmer
> On 26.05.2011 22:06, Mark Banner wrote:
>>
>> Therefore, we will be renumbering the current work in progress releases
>> as follows:
>>
>> * Thunderbird 3.3 (aka Miramar) will become Thunderbird 5.0 (based on
>> gecko 5.0).
>> * The builds which will be produced from comm-aurora (where we merged
>> to last Tuesday), will become Thunderbird 6.0.
>> * The builds from comm-central which are currently numbered 3.4a1pre
>> will become Thunderbird 7.0.
>
> Having browser versionless isn't that bad, but email client isn't
> suppose to be versionless because standards here isn't moving that
> fast. And surface for attack is much less than in browser.
RSS feeds essentially port many damages and features of the web to
Thunderbird. As for standards speed, IMAP has had a spurt of activity
over the past two-three years that would be nice to to be fully
implemented. In addition, email is perhaps the single most classical
vector for viruses, if anyone cares to recall the "I love you" virus and
its friends of that era.
--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth
Wayne Mery (vn)
Indeed - "me toos" reminds me of the US congress (just an example) where
everyone seeks to have their voice heard and get their 10 minutes of
face time on TV, even if the position was stated by others, possibly in
a different way. Not always a productive use of time.
Having been a moderator in other venues, but also a lover of freedom and
a belief that other viewpoints often lead to better understanding and
results, it is difficult to make a decision to a censure (for lack of a
better word) any subscriber's postings. Censuring doesn't feel good to
the moderator. And it can also be a slippery slope, for example when
person B complains that "hey, you let person A's post through, why not
mine". You become a cop instead of a facilitator.
This is not to say that other viewpoints aren't valued, but there must
be a useful result, and not a never ending stream comments as when gets
when argues the merits of PC vs Mac.
Perhaps a way forward is for announcements of decisions to be clearly
tagged as such, and any followup postings that disagree should do more
than post their displeasure and why; the reader should assume that the
announced decision will be enacted, and present possible solutions that
reduce their anticipated pain in that new environment.
Another possibility is move discussion to some other forum, or even
private messages. (not unlike taking the discussion to a subcommittee)
W.
John Hopkins
> 4.0 than a new version number 15.
There may be a compromise: use the minor version to track release numbers and match gecko version. Bump the major version whenever it feels right.
So 15.0 becomes 4.15. I don't think anyone cares if the minor version is in the hundreds: 4.105, not a big deal.
John
Nikolay Shopik
> RSS feeds essentially port many damages and features of the web to
> Thunderbird. As for standards speed, IMAP has had a spurt of activity
> over the past two-three years that would be nice to to be fully
> implemented. In addition, email is perhaps the single most classical
> vector for viruses, if anyone cares to recall the "I love you" virus and
> its friends of that era.
Let's not forget IMAP itself is protocol and should be implement at both
sides, so server side too and his extensions. While HTTP protocol
doesn't change recently, only layout XML/HTML/XHTML/CSS/etc changes and
bring features.
In real life scenario TB just missing few IMAP extensions(I keep up to
date Mozilla wiki page for that). Not what I'm against implement every
possible extension :).
And if user decide to open attachment nothing you can do about, its just
single and basic vector for attack, it will be always there.
Kent James
> we'd end up with two lists for everyone interested to subscribe to. It
> would also mean that people couldn't as easily ask a quick question if
> there's something that is ambiguous or needs more detail in the
> announcement, although in that case they might end-up asking on
> tb-planning anyway.
our communication) is a continual battle of perfection versus
simplicity. I don't think that whatever problem an announcement list is
supposed to solve is worth the new complexity of a separate list, when
there are already zillions of channels of communication, so I vote for
the simplicity of no new list.
rkent
Kent James
> What do you all think about keeping tb-planning mostly open, but
> asking people to re-write their posts if they aren't adding useful
> information?
clearly being abusive or counterproductive. "Not new information" is too
low of a bar for intervention.
In the past few years, I would say that Thunderbird has suffered more
from too quick decisions from the powers-that-be, that are then
considered set in stone and undiscussable, than from excessive whining
and complaining. What the project needs is not additional mechanisms to
restrict discussions, but rather leadership that is good at consensus
building in important new areas (the cat herding that BenB, Joshua and I
were talking about in IRC a few days ago). I have high hopes that you,
Blake, can be an effective cat herder for us.
rkent
Tanstaafl
> We do need to save users from version marketing.
Please think about this for a minute. I see this as creating an entirely
new problem trying to solve a non-existent one.
My users don't want or need saving from version marketing.
I'd also point out that, in reality, it is this new hyper-versioning
scheme (for lack of a better term) that will most likely be considered
'version marketing', at least by the tabloids. I really don't relish the
idea of Mozilla becoming a side joke like Chrome is now with their
version creep, but that is what will happen... "Look, thunderbird just
released version 25 <yawn>."
What me and my users do need are things like better IMAP support (the
bug about re-downloading the same attachment over and over again for
folders marked for offline use for example is still not fixed and is
extremely annoying at work where I connect to my IMAP server on a Gb
LAN, and extremely frustrating when connecting at home over the
internet), better Address Book support (can't search across multiple
ABs, extremely limited Printing capabilities, etc), Group Policy
support, and many others...
You are right - I don't care much about version numbers, but I mean this
in the exact opposite way you do - I don't view the current version
numbering scheme as broken, so it doesn't, in my opinion, need fixing,
while many other very real problems (see above) do.
I believe that Chrome was what started this new hyper-versioning scheme.
Opera kindof started following their lead, and now it appears that the
Firefox team is simply emulating them, and now Thunderbird is emulating
Firefox, 'just because'. The fact is, no other open source software
ratchets their version numbers up like this - quite the opposite in fact.
The Linux kernel has existed for - what, almost 30 years now? And Linus
just announced version 3.0... if they were following such a numbering
scheme, they would be at version - what, 5,327?
And no, I'm not complaining, just responding to what I see as comments
in defense of a decision that appears to have no good defense save one -
it is being done to keep up with Firefox.
Well, the best answer, in my opinion, has already been suggested... use
the MINOR version number for that, and only bump the major number for
the same reasons as always - MAJOR new features/backend changes, etc.
Ok, that's just the thoughts of one lone irrelevant sys-admin in charge
of a 60+ user base.
Jonathan Protzenko
> ratchets their version numbers up like this - quite the opposite in fact.
jonathan@ramona:~ $ xterm -v
XTerm(269)
Ben Bucksch
>> It is definitely *easier* to market a new version 3.3 or
>> 4.0 than a new version number 15.
> There may be a compromise: use the minor version to track release numbers and match gecko version. Bump the major version whenever it feels right.
>
> So 15.0 becomes 4.15. I don't think anyone cares if the minor version is in the hundreds: 4.105, not a big deal.
I like that idea.
Joshua Cranmer
>> The fact is, no other open source software
>> ratchets their version numbers up like this - quite the opposite in
>> fact.
>
> jonathan@ramona:~ $ xterm -v
> XTerm(269)
The installed packages I have with version numbers greater than 10,
excluding obviously year-based package numbers:
python-twisted (11)
build-essential (11)
preview-latex-style (11)
libportaudio2 (19)
psmisc (22)
wireless-tools (30)
x-ttcidfont-conf (32)
udev (167)
xterm (269)
less (443)
That is 10 projects right there with large version numbers. Of course,
you have to take into account that a very large amount of open source
software never even makes it up 1.0...
--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth
_______________________________________________
Ludovic Hirlimann
> On 11-06-01 20:23 , Karsten Düsterloh wrote:
>> Blake Winton aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>>> This isn't a place where everyone gets to decide everything about
>>> Thunderbird.
>> I don't think anyone expects this, realistically.
>
> Well, it's sort of been treated that way for a little while. And it
> seems to me like it's worth re-iterating that it's not.
>
>> But there's a difference between „we're planning X, we would like to
>> know how you feel about, and announce our decision“ and „we decided X,
>> and we don't care what you say“.
>
> I agree, and I think we should keep the "we decided X" posts off this
> forum, because there isn't much useful conversation we can have about
> them. (On the other hand, the "we're planning X" threads I've read
> have been very helpful, and I would like to see more of them.)
Thunderbird. We could have just ignored reaction and I'm glad we didn't.
And sometime we do decide stuff without really having the choice - but
still it needs to be announced.
Ludo
--
Thunderbird QA https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lhirlimann/
Robert Kaiser
> Right. And while in the US, people say "2005 BMW", we in Europe think in
> models. (And that might explain part of this discussion, because cars
> are often used as comparison.) I know there were 3 models of Mercedes
> C-Class, W202 starting 1994 (IIRC), W203 starting 2000, and W204
> starting 2008 IIRC. Once a major new model is released, the old model
> drops significantly in price. A used C-Class from 2000 is *a lot* more
> worth than one from 1999, because that's the newer model, while 2000 to
> 2001 almost makes no difference. And that reflects reality, because the
> W203 is indeed very different from the W202, while 2000 to 2001 makes
> almost no difference.
Hah, so now we know that Mozilla-related devs drive expensive cars. ;-)
But back to the problem at hand: That comparison is flawed. You can't
get a free online update for your W202 to the W203 and the W204. And in
our case, we will ship automated free online updates to all users of TB5
once TB6 is out there - and actually, still using TB5 at that point will
be a security risk.
Robert Kaiser
Nikolay Shopik
> So 15.0 becomes 4.15. I don't think anyone cares if the minor version is in the hundreds: 4.105, not a big deal.
>
I think both parties should be happy about that, something that fits
everyone, w/o compromising each other. So I think that is perfect scenario.
Tanstaafl
> On 06/02/2011 06:27 PM, Jonathan Protzenko wrote:
>>> The fact is, no other open source software
>>> ratchets their version numbers up like this - quite the opposite in
>>> fact.
>> jonathan@ramona:~ $ xterm -v
>> XTerm(269)
> The installed packages I have with version numbers greater than 10,
> excluding obviously year-based package numbers:
> python-twisted (11)
> build-essential (11)
> preview-latex-style (11)
> libportaudio2 (19)
> psmisc (22)
> wireless-tools (30)
> x-ttcidfont-conf (32)
> udev (167)
> xterm (269)
> less (443)
Ok, point taken - some smaller, single purpose projects like these -
most with only one or two maintainers for the life of the project - may
choose to go by patch level for simplicity's sake...
I'm talking large, cross-platform projects, with multiple maintainers -
you simply cannot equate the two cases like that.
> That is 10 projects right there with large version numbers. Of course,
> you have to take into account that a very large amount of open source
> software never even makes it up 1.0...
Right...
Tanstaafl
> On 02.06.2011 17:02, John Hopkins wrote:
>>> It is definitely *easier* to market a new version 3.3 or
>>> 4.0 than a new version number 15.
>> There may be a compromise: use the minor version to track release
>> numbers and match gecko version. Bump the major version whenever it
>> feels right.
>>
>> So 15.0 becomes 4.15. I don't think anyone cares if the minor version
>> is in the hundreds: 4.105, not a big deal.
> I like that idea.
As do I, as I said in my last...
This is the way it should be.
Thomas Düllmann
> ...My whole-hearted agreement on Karsten's scepticism against the new
> versioning intentions. ...
> Imagine Thunderbird 10 and we may still not be able to search all of
> our address books in one go - wouldn't that be weird?
Fwiw, I was wrong. I underestimated user sensitivity to our version
numbers, which are about to become meaningless.
Bug 170270 (Cannot search multiple/all addressbooks), comment 25:
> It's incredible how this crippled functionality still persists since ever... We
> are already heading for version 5.0 and nothing.
In view of this, my above statement should probably read:
Imagine Thunderbird *5* and we may still not be able to search all of
our address books in one go - wouldn't that be weird?
For business maintenance and private support, we also make life harder
with the new version numbers:
So far, asking users for the version number would provide an easy and
immediate impression if they need to update or not: "I'm on version 2"
-> "you better update" // "I am on version 3" -> "that's quite recent".
Between version numbers of 20something+ nobody will be able to keep
track and give such advice. Of course, automatical updates should be
"on", but given the high number of arguable UI changes, not everybody
will want that...
While some people are dreaming of SwanBird (certainly nice, but not to
be expected before new version 1000...), others just want a fully
functional mail reader that let's them search all of their address
books, or that doesn't delete their mail when they press DEL on a
selected and focussed attachment, to name but a few...
+1 for the compromise suggestion of having main version numbers as we
had them (3, 4, 5) + sub-version number according to ff/gecko (5+x):
4.105 - the best of both worlds. And something more appropriate to
describe the state of the bird in terms of bugs and (missing) features.