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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The respected Firefox add-on developer Quicksaver announced yesterday that he won't update any of his extensions anymore because of Mozilla's decision to move to WebExtensions exclusively. Quicksaver, responsible for add-ons such as Tab Groups, OmniSidebar, FindBar Tweak, Beyond Australis and Puzzle Bars, had four of his five add-ons for Firefox featured by Mozilla in the past.
If you open any of the author's add-on pages on the Mozilla Add-ons repository, you will notice an important announcement on the page. It reads:
IMPORTANT: The add-on will not receive any more updates and will stop working by next November with Firefox 57.[...] Quicksaver posted an explanation on his website that reveals why he made the decision to stop add-on development. There are several reasons, but the core reason given is that at least four of his five add-ons rely heavily on functionality that will either not be provided by WebExtensions, or would require him to rewrite the extension almost completely.
[...] Quicksaver is not the only author who announced that he will stop working on add-ons for Firefox. Add-ons like New Tab Tools, Classic Theme Restorer, Tree Style Tabs, Open With, DownThem All, KeeFox and many others are likely also not going to make the cut.
Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/28/firefox-add-on-quicksaver-quits/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 30 2017, @07:36AM
Gnome2 is gone.
KDE3 is long gone.
Many of us remember when Firefox was a fresh idea. My first Firefox was a milestone release, somewhere around v0.5. It was awesome, in comparison to anything else available at the time. And, it just kept getting more awesome as time went on. But, all good things do come to an end. How long has it been? Project started in Apr 2003 - Version 1 released Nov 2004. Probably means I installed milestone release between June and Dec of 2003. So, 13 years plus.
How many other softwares are there that have had that long a run?
If Firefox has decided to become the next irrelevant software, then we'll just move on to the next "best thing". We may have to learn some new tricks to make that "best thing" work for us, but we'll learn them.
It's been fun, Firefox - I'm going to miss you! I still miss Word Perfect, but, I have moved on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday January 30 2017, @07:43AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_(software) [wikipedia.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Monday January 30 2017, @08:09AM
And on the KDE side: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Desktop_Environment_3#Trinity_Desktop_Environment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @09:00AM
KDE is not as bad as it was. I run latest version on zesty and it finally feels like kde has reached that vision for which it dumped kde3.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:54PM
And then they scrapped KDE 4, to which I assume you are referring, and which was supposed to be a major rewrite that would allow them to move forward, and came up with KDE 5, with fewer features and greater instability. I'm sure that when/if KDE 5 gets to be on par with KDE 4, they'll scrap it in favor of KDE 6.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday January 30 2017, @09:15AM
I too used Phoenix, replacing konqueror. Stopped it as a main browser some years ago though, and its continued to go down hill.
However I use vim, still gong strong after decades, also daily use Perl 5 and bash, and all the other standard os level tools (make, gcc, gnuplot, etc). On rare occasions I use windows and have to run putty. All these have been around longer than Firefox/bird/Phoenix. I still use java applications, and my spreadsheet of choice is gnumeric.
2003 is quite late on reflection for a first release of the tools I use. I guess I'm just old.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 30 2017, @12:56PM
How many other softwares are there that have had that long a run?
Unix init system?
I have an alternative interpretation that all of these example fit the category of "ruined old software that had funded development long after it was complete"
When you look at a completed piece of fine art, would paying the artist in perpetuity to continue working on the item make it better or worse? Well, worse in every example, of course. Just like taking the art away from motivated individual or small group of individuals and having it done by a collaborative team or even worse by a corporation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @01:55PM
Well, the difference is that works of art don't usually have security holes that need to be fixed. Also, they rarely need to be adapted to changing environments.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 30 2017, @04:19PM
Well, the difference is that works of art don't usually have security holes that need to be fixed.
It's because people keep coming up with crazy ideas like EFI environments that need mouse support and the ability to flash themselves from inside a running OS. The most elegant system can be ruined by others introducing insecure software and demanding somebody else fix the problem.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 30 2017, @04:14PM
I was having a conversation about it last night and looked it up: 3.6 was all the way back in 2010. Damn I feel old now :P
First version I used was like 2.0.0.6 or something. Hoping to ride out Firefox's public suicide in Pale Moon.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Monday January 30 2017, @10:53PM
Oh please! I'm old enough to have taken part in the great Netscape VS IE flame wars which just for the record? MSFT didn't have to kill Netscape, they committed suicide when they released NS 4. Say what you will about that old POS IE 5 but at least you could look at more than 2 web pages in a row without getting BSOD'd by the browser which is more than I could say for NS 4.
But I second the Pale Moon recommendation and hope you did like me and wrote the extension devs asking them to switch support to Pale Moon, now that Mozilla is going the NS suicide route its increasingly looking like Pale Moon is gonna be the one to take up the mantle and having all the old FF extension devs switch to supporting Pale Moon would just be the push Pale Moon has been needing to take its rightful place as the new FF.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @05:12PM
KDE3 lives! There's an updated fork called Trinity. http://www.trinitydesktop.org/ [trinitydesktop.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 30 2017, @07:19PM
How many other softwares are there that have had that long a run?
I know at least one [seamonkey-project.org], still the best in the business.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:00PM
then we'll just move on to the next "best thing"
I don't want the "next best thing", I want an open-source project that has a say in developing web standards.
Many have forgotten about it now, but Firefox was instrumental in defeating the "you need Internet Exploder X to visit this site" practice in web development.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 30 2017, @09:13PM
I haven't forgotten. I may not remember as clearly as some other people - at that point in my life, I wasn't at all involved in open source, had little idea what it was all about. Libre meant almost nothing to me. But, I did see the results of free, open source, and I'm perfectly aware that Mozilla was the kick in the ass that the internet needed at the time.
But, you may be forgetting that we have a sort-of replacement for Mozilla, right now. Webkit is open-sourced. Google turned it loose, far more effectively than they turned Android loose.
Can you tell me how many webkit based browsers there are on the market today? It's kind of a trick question - think a moment before you start tallying them up. ;^)
Mozilla did win the browser wars, even if they decide to throw their victory away after all these years.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:38PM
Can you tell me how many webkit based browsers there are on the market today?
Pretty much all of them other than IE and, until the near future, Firefox.
#whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @01:56PM
https://mate-desktop.org/ [mate-desktop.org]