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posted by CoolHand on Saturday August 22 2015, @05:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-is-this-company-named-mozilla dept.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody who's been paying attention the past few years, Mozilla has announced that it will be deprecating all current extensions and have all future extensions be compatible with Chrome and Opera via the new WebExtensions API.

  • We are implementing a new extension API, called WebExtensions—largely compatible with the model used by Chrome and Opera—to make it easier to develop extensions across multiple browsers.
  • A safer, faster, multi-process version of Firefox is coming soon with Electrolysis; we need developers to ensure their Firefox add-ons will be compatible with it.
  • To ensure third-party extensions provide customization without sacrificing security, performance or exposing users to malware, we will require all extensions to be validated and signed by Mozilla starting in Firefox 41, which will be released on September 22nd 2015.
  • We have decided on an approximate timeline for the deprecation of XPCOM- and XUL-based add-ons.

Maybe now we can get a sustainable fork going?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Saturday August 22 2015, @07:46AM

    by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday August 22 2015, @07:46AM (#226182)

    Welcome to software that comes out of SF. The culture is very arrogant, and consideration for the community is non-existent. The consideration is moving more and more towards "enterprise", which actually reads as "sellouts". We are in the process of developing the next equivalent of yuppies.

    One example is the Drupal 8 vs. Backdrop developements. Backdrop creators want to keep the huge ecosystem of Drupal 7 modules/developers relevant, Drupal 8 wants to cater towards advanced development for Enterprise customers, but the changes to the core system will push out a huge segment of the community. That said, the Drupal 8 switch has good reasons for happening, just as Mozilla also does. I think inter-operability is great, but we must be careful how we get there.

    It is a behavioral system rooted in arrogance where a few smart people think they know best and will force it on others. Their reasoning has merit, but they lack the larger picture. When people complain it is definitely a "fuck you" and often comes with "fork it yourself then". Criticism is not allowed.

    It is weird to think that a lot of open source projects (the bigger the badder) are in some ways worse for users. At least a corporate entity would be more sensitive to the community because they have a PR department that will force sense into the devs when people get pissed, because for a corp the bottom line is just that, the line that doesn't get crossed (or they lose money hopefully). Basically, developers need to remember that they are building tools for millions upon millions of people, and new/shiny is not always better.

    I know for a fact that these concerns have gotten to the board, but we have the age-old pyramid power structure at play. The open source movement was supposed to move away from that, but it still seems to boil down to the age old "tyranny of the few" that we humans are so good at.

    Now this is a lot of complaining with no real solution, but it just comes down to the personal ethics/morality/judgment/whatever of the individuals/businesses.

    I would MUCH prefer if Mozilla stuck to their old principles, even if they lose a lot of market share. Leave the control with the USER!

    --
    ~Tilting at windmills~
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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday August 22 2015, @07:33PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Saturday August 22 2015, @07:33PM (#226357)

    Welcome to software that comes out of SF.

    San Francisco? SourceForge? Sci Fi?

    --
    "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 Zz9zZ on Tuesday August 25 2015, @05:58PM

      by Zz9zZ (1348) on Tuesday August 25 2015, @05:58PM (#227704)

      Woops just saw this. San Francisco, I just didn't want to generalize too much further beyond my direct experience. Be excellent to each other, and for coders specifically try to maintain a little humbleness. Sometimes someone who does not have as much experience or knowledge can see something new, and no one should be so arrogant to think their view is 100% the best.

      --
      ~Tilting at windmills~