Mozilla Firefox 24 Moves Ahead With Modest Changes

[droste]

This lacks in Firefox's new versioning - you can't tell if the changes between 23 and 24 are more significant than the changes between 22 and 23.

How exactly do you measure this "significance" for changes? And how much of this unit is needed to justify a major version change?

[demonkoryu]

Semantic version numbering was there for a reason.

X.Y.Z

X, the major release version, signifies BC-breaks or at least disruptive changes; and possibly some large new features.
Y, the minor release version, signifies feature additions.
Z, the patch release version, signifies bugfixes, security updates and minor improvements.

So, when a new major version came out, I knew to take my time and read about the changes.

Now, I have no idea where the difference between Chrome 22 and 28 is. It isn't a huge problem, but I also can't see the value in this numbering scheme, apart from marketing reasons.
I'm theorising all other major browsers are now playing catch-up with Chrome in the version number department, or something like that. Even Opera is in the v17 (18??) beta now, after half a decade of staying with minor releases of v12, they suddenly jumped 6 major version numbers. It's irritating.

[curaga]

It could be argued that since FF breaks the UI for people every version, every version is thus disruptive

[Ericg]

Semantic version numbering was there for a reason.

X.Y.Z

X, the major release version, signifies BC-breaks or at least disruptive changes; and possibly some large new features.
Y, the minor release version, signifies feature additions.
Z, the patch release version, signifies bugfixes, security updates and minor improvements.

So, when a new major version came out, I knew to take my time and read about the changes.

Now, I have no idea where the difference between Chrome 22 and 28 is. It isn't a huge problem, but I also can't see the value in this numbering scheme, apart from marketing reasons.
I'm theorising all other major browsers are now playing catch-up with Chrome in the version number department, or something like that. Even Opera is in the v17 (18??) beta now, after half a decade of staying with minor releases of v12, they suddenly jumped 6 major version numbers. It's irritating.

2 points:

1) New versioning is a "Don't think about it" versioning system. What browser version you are running shouldn't matter since the web isn't about the browser, its about the content. (Chrome and Firefox got it right by doing auto-updates on everything except Linux. Linux its handled for you with updates via package management. Only people who get screwed is basically Debian who locks versions, but even then they MIGHT load new versions in Backports-- Im not sure)

The goal isn't for you to be "Thinking" about updates like you said above, its for you to just keep consuming the content on the web and for the web to just get gradually better.

(Point 2 ill do when I come back. gotta run)

[Ericg]

2 points:

1) New versioning is a "Don't think about it" versioning system. What browser version you are running shouldn't matter since the web isn't about the browser, its about the content. (Chrome and Firefox got it right by doing auto-updates on everything except Linux. Linux its handled for you with updates via package management. Only people who get screwed is basically Debian who locks versions, but even then they MIGHT load new versions in Backports-- Im not sure)

The goal isn't for you to be "Thinking" about updates like you said above, its for you to just keep consuming the content on the web and for the web to just get gradually better.

(Point 2 ill do when I come back. gotta run)

2) As I said above... Marketing does matter. Version numbers are an easy, off the hand way to judge a compare the maturity of two differing solutions. The uninformed user would see Firefox 4 (for example) and see Chrome 12 (random version # I picked, no idea if Chrome was at 12 when FF4 was out) and assume that Chrome was a more established, more mature browser and that Firefox was the 'young up and comer' not the other way around. I have no doubt that Opera bumped its version just so that it could be on the same playing field marketing wise as Chrome and Firefox.

[Bucic]

2) As I said above... Marketing does matter. Version numbers are an easy, off the hand way to judge a compare the maturity of two differing solutions. The uninformed user would see Firefox 4 (for example) and see Chrome 12 (random version # I picked, no idea if Chrome was at 12 when FF4 was out) and assume that Chrome was a more established, more mature browser and that Firefox was the 'young up and comer' not the other way around. I have no doubt that Opera bumped its version just so that it could be on the same playing field marketing wise as Chrome and Firefox.

Read release notes prior to installation of a new version and shut it.

[skx7]

I do not understand all these compliants about the version numbering I think it's a good way to force the average Joe to keep his firefox browser up to date nowadays in a malware infected cyber world

[dee.]

Err... Every release is now 6 weeks worth of work. They should all have about the same amount of significant changes in them (as in, not many).

That's not really true in practice. It's easy to say "there's 6 weeks worth of work" but in actual fact it doesn't always happen that way, what with git branches that are kept separate for multiple release cycles, merged later, etc.

Not every new feature is designed in 6 weeks time total.

[smitty3268]

That's not really true in practice. It's easy to say "there's 6 weeks worth of work" but in actual fact it doesn't always happen that way, what with git branches that are kept separate for multiple release cycles, merged later, etc.

Not every new feature is designed in 6 weeks time total.

But on average, the same number of those external branches get merged every 6 weeks. There may be 1 or 2 extra 1 merge cycle, or 1 or 2 less, but it's small enough there is rarely much of a difference.

[Ericg]

Is anyone running Fedora 19, Fedora Rawhide or Fedora 20 in this thread?? Just got the firefox 24 update on my system but about:config --> search "media" doesn't return any media.* results for "media.gstreamer.enabled." Can anyone else confirm they are missing a key value named as such?