below would make the whole thing a lot less inflammatory.
Ben Bucksch wrote:
> Pascal,
>
> Pascal Chevrel wrote:
>
>> - And, most importantly, I follow the Mozilla project, promote it and
>> file bugs to
>> help as much as I can. Just like lots of other end-users.
>>
> If you file good bug reports, you are not counted as end-user anymore.
> End-users are typically those who have little interest in the details of
> the technology and are just interested in the output (rather than
> (helping with) the process of creating it).
>
>> I've been using Mozilla for a year now and I download nightlies very
>> often (I have
>> a fast connection), I've never lost any data and Mozilla was always
>> more stable
>> than NS4, NS6.x or IE5.5/6 on my machine.
>>
> You've been glad. I lost countless sent-mail copies and unsent
> mail/posts/forms because of crashes.
>
>> mozilla and promote it along with W3C standards.
>>
> Great.
>
>> All the professional web designers
>> I know (and I know many !) haven't installed it and do not plan to.
>> They work for a
>> target audience which is 80% IE-15% NS4 and their main concerns are
>> called
>> profitability and client deadlines.
>>
> :-(
>
>> So before being scornful and rude with
>> end-users, I think that coders should realize that they are their main
>> support. How
>> many ex-NS4 users would now be IE users if we, mozilla *users*, had
>> not shown them
>> an alternative ?
>>
>> More generally, I think that the problem is that some programmers show
>> a clear
>> contempt for users and follow the old "users are too dumb to have a
>> clue" rule. If
>> you look at the thread, you will notice that users do not complain
>> about the lack
>> of spell checker but about the lack of courteasy.
>>
> It's just that I feel like a horde of ignorant people are running over
> me. There is no room to be polite anymore, you just need to break free
> first.
> There would be no need to break free, if users wouldn't end up here in
> the first place.
>
> Many users complaining here seem to be missing one important point:
> There is no advantage for us if they use Mozilla. In particular, if they
> use Mozilla, we get not even a tiny bit richer ("rich" as in being able
> to pay the rent). They have the old-world "I am the customer and I am
> the king" attitude, forgetting that they pay us nothing, so that this
> rule has no basis anymore and doesn't apply. Here, developers are those
> bringing use to the product. [Add here what I wrote Steve before] Of
> course, people who then insist on the "but we are the users!" attitude
> look completely off, when viewed from that angle.
>
> So, yes, they are "clueless", and they are a burden. It's not their
> fault (there's nothing wrong with it), but it's not ours either. We are
> trying to make facts clear, in an effective way. But they don't get it
> unless you talk to them in a language Gerv used. BTW: I don't think the
> FAQ is rude.
>
> I appreciate that you want to promote web-standards, but we (esp. I *g*)
> would prefer, if you pointed your friends to Beonex, Netscape and co
> instead of mozilla.org, because those people (or their friends) might
> end up at our developer lists and asking user questions.
>
> (OK, I admit, Beonex Communicator releases were too few recently
> (understatement), but I am trying to change that. In fact, I wanted to
> do that right now.)
>
> Steve Carroll wrote:
>
>> I am sorry, I apologize.
>
>
> Accepted. :)
>
>
