On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Steve Rudman wrote:
> > It's really not like this now. That's why we have milestone releases and
> > nightlies.
>
> But such releases are relevant for developers. Developers want to make
> sure that the features they added work for users. I meant, in my comment
> about users using Moz at their own risk, that there is not the safety
> net of product support that proprietary versions of software have.
Yes, primarily...but they are also relevant for users. A milestone is a
lot more stable than a nightly, which means that it won't crash when
you're surfing your Anime sites, downloading soundfonts or whatever you're
doing. The users also want to make sure the new features work! That's why
they download a milestone build...
Now about the "safety net" -- Ok, but I think you're stretching it. Most
users that I know find technical support far too distant to be of any real
help. Therefore, it doesn't bother them if it isn't there! This goes for
geeks like self and novice users that I know. The novice people will rent
a geek for a night; the medium-skilled users will consult newsgroups or
websites. This matches up with the experiences the help desk reports --
either really clueless people, people who couldn't find the answer
anywhere, and people who prefer a phone conversation, even if it costs
them. The help desk is really the last of all resorts.
>
> Questions like, "Is Mozilla for end-users or for developers?" are
> obviously too simplistic. People are free to use Mozilla if they want as
> their daily browser. But just because they do so isn't a compelling
> reason to add end-user support.
Why not? If I'm a user and I contribute help because I think it will help
others, is someone going to stop me? That's the beauty of open source
products. If there's an itch, very rarely will someone prevent me from
scratching it.
> I can't speak much about the IE situation, except to say that I think
> Microsoft probably doesn't want too much customization of IE. The IE
> Admin Kit is fairly limited in what one can do. The Netscape Client
> Customization Kit is, to my knowledge, much more flexible. One could, if
> one wanted, modify the help files. It is (or was, for NS 4+) easy to do,
> and the license permitted that. Some distributors did in fact alter the
> files.
Because there were files there to modify...if there was nothing, I think
you would have seen a lot fewer distributors, honestly. We owe those guys
a baseline at least, even if we don't think of the end user at all.
~Mike
