Increasingly, the development model for Open Source software seems to be (excuse me) “Hope & Force”. Perhaps you have read of my discontent with PulseAudio due to their unrealistic and abusive treatment of users, and now FireFox is also telling users to blow goats.
Asa Dotzler, director of Firefox, has made it clear he doesn’t consider the enterprise users worth supporting.
In several comments added to a follow-up post by Kaply, Dotzler did not mince words.
“Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours,” Dotzler said. “I can’t imagine why we’d focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about.”
Later Thursday, Dotzler essentially said it was a return-on-investment decision.
“Years ago, we didn’t have the resources [to solve the enterprise support problem]. Today, I argue, we shouldn’t care even if we do have the resources because of the cost benefit trade,” Dotzler said. “A minute spent making a corporate user happy can better be spent making many regular users happy. I’d much rather Mozilla spending its limited resources looking out for the billions of users that don’t have enterprise support systems already taking care of them.”
Near day’s end, he was even more blunt. “I’m basically saying that I don’t care about making Firefox enterprise friendly,” Dotzler said.
I understand that FireFox is not even attempting to support the Enterprise. That’s fine, but you don’t have to go about poking people in the eye just to make your point. FireFox used to be the alternative browser of choice, and at one point had put a serious dent in MSIE’s share.
[pullquote]Enterprise computing blurs the lines between the network, workstation, worker , and work[/pullquote]
The quote above was prompted by questions about Mozilla’s decision to abruptly drop security support for version 4 of FireFox immediately upon the release of version 5. Nobody appreciates being treated like that. IBM got caught out by this (they had just finished testing for a big rollout of FF4 as an enterprise browser!), but one of the things making it difficult for them to adjust their stance now is that they are an Enterprise. First, they cannot simply “wipe and re-install” in case they are compromised; Enterprise computing blurs the lines between the network, workstation, worker , and work. Second, the first point requires a competent IT support sub-organization, and competence requires testing and practice, among other things. So FireFox and Enterprise have decided they are mutually a bad match.
Microsoft rectified a lot of the issues with IE and started winning back share, great, but Firefox simultaneously developed a reputation for bugginess and an unpleasant user experience. This could actually have been used to sweeten the pot, and retain some platoons of supporters; evangelists even. Firefox could presumably have acknowledged the numerous issues with FF4, expressed gratitude to users and antagonists alike (with no small degree of overlap), and made a pitch for user support during a rapid, focused transition to FF5. If they had asked for support from the user base, they would likely have received it.
[pullquote]Mozilla has badly misunderstood their position and will see little adoption of FireFox 5[/pullquote]
Instead, Mozilla is behaving as if they have a generation of customers locked in, as if they hold a monopoly on some other “connected” critical system, or as if they create the hardware and the software. It’s not as though it costs any more or less to switch to Chrome, for example. Oh sure, Chrome is Google and they are in ur webz etc, but they are no more evil than Firefox with these shenanigans. Mozilla has badly misunderstood their position and will see little adoption of FireFox 5 beyond those users whom no amount of abuse will deter. Every product has its fanboys, but it’s no way to plan a business.
[pullquote]when you are burnt out at your job, it’s time to move on[/pullquote]
Overall, it’s a shame to see the non-monopoly players losing their marbles. I hope I’m wrong, but I feel that I am seeing a marked increase in open source developer contempt for the unwashed masses of users. I understand that open source developers the world over must be exhausted from the ever-increasing waves of mouthy freeloading entitlement children (even at thirty years old), but a universal truth is that when you are burnt out at your job, it’s time to move on. This applies just as much to non-paying jobs as it does to paying ones.
