Closed Bug 373065 Opened 18 years ago Closed 17 years ago

Replace Mozilla suite start page with an upgrade warning

Categories

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Product:
www.mozilla.org
Component:
General
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: kairo, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

Attachments

(2 obsolete files)

The Mozilla suite start page http://www.mozilla.org/start/ can give the wrong impression of having a current product installed. We should replace this old page with a big upgrade warning, pointing to the two choices of SeaMonkey and Firefox. I've been talking to a few people about that, and I'm also working on this new version of the page, see the attached preview screen shot.
Attached patch work in progress patch (obsolete) — — Splinter Review
I think it might be a good idea to show the HTML used, so that link target are clear, etc. This is my WIP patch - the nag box still needs to be dealt with - and I think we probably should redirect SeaMonkey and Firefox users on the server side to their respective default homepages when they hit www.m.o/start Ah, yes, and while the Firefox image I used is already on www.m.o the SeaMonkey image isn't yet. But I think that's probably non-controversial anyways ;-)
Comment on attachment 257775 [details] [diff] [review] work in progress patch Whoah, looks like this isn't quite right. The upgrade path for the Mozilla Suite is Firefox. This was decided years ago and has not changed. This change isn't correct and should not be landed.
Attachment #257775 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #257775 - Flags: review-
If that's the case, I won't touch this issue any more and put my valuable time into stuff that doesn't include Firefox in its marketing. Thanks.
Assignee: kairo → nobody
I and Robert have spoken about that with Gerv at FOSDEM and Gerv said that this would be ok in this way like in attachment 257775 [details] [diff] [review]
Kairo, this isn't about Firefox marketing. This is about the Mozilla Application Suite and Firefox _products_ which the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation support and the supported upgrade path is Firefox. Adrian and Robert, to put it bluntly, Gerv was wrong. I've added him to the Cc: here so he can chime in if he wants. We spent quite a bit of time and discussion on this topic in the early days of the Foundation and we made it quite clear that the upgrade path for the Mozilla Foundation-supported Mozilla Application Suite was the then Mozilla Foundation-supported Firefox browser and Thunderbird email programs. As far as I'm aware, that has not been formally revisited and reversed.
Asa: "The upgrade path for the Mozilla Suite is Firefox. This was decided years ago and has not changed." Last I checked, that's the user's call. Maybe swap the position of the two, or put SM under FF, but if they're still using the suite, there's probably a reason other than living under a rock. MoFo decided to end development on SM in favor of FF, but in no way does that mean that the 'upgrade path' is only to FF. It means the officially RECOMMENDED upgrade path is to FF. AFAIK, Mozilla in general is still about choice. Not telling suite users about SM is a bad choice. "This change isn't correct and should not be landed." Maybe it's not final, but it's certainly not incorrect. "we made it quite clear that the upgrade path for the Mozilla Foundation-supported Mozilla Application Suite was the then Mozilla Foundation-supported Firefox browser and Thunderbird email programs" This at least is slightly better worded. But in the end it's the user's choice. If MoFo really dislikes SM that much, it should cease all support of it. Otherwise, let the user decide. Place emphasis on FF, but don't exclude SM. This being said, I don't use SM nor care to, but there's no reason to put down an iron fist here.
If the concern is that the official supported by Mozilla Corporation upgrade path is only Firefox, then put a notice to that effect on the page. Discouraging a user's ability to choose a product they'll be more comfortable with, that's as actively maintained with regards to security as Firefox is, seems bad for an organization who cares about user choice.
please, no bugspam. I hope to see an answer from Gerv here...
Grey, I never said we could not tell Suite users about SeaMonkey. I'm fine with a short description and a text link somewhere on the page, but Mozilla's (Foundation and Corporation) supported path, and the one that will be advertised to Suite users, is Firefox and it is in no way on equal footing with SeaMonkey here. SeaMonkey is a different application and it is free to try to develop an audience but when Mozilla made the decision to transition to Firefox, it was made clear to both the community and the SeaMonkey team that they would not be endorsed as the upgrade path for Mozilla Application Suite users. As I said above, I'm unaware of any revisitation and change in policy and that is why this page is wrong.
(In reply to comment #5) > Kairo, this isn't about Firefox marketing. This is about the Mozilla > Application Suite and Firefox _products_ which the Mozilla Foundation and > Mozilla Corporation support and the supported upgrade path is Firefox. > > Adrian and Robert, to put it bluntly, Gerv was wrong. I've added him to the Cc: > here so he can chime in if he wants. > > We spent quite a bit of time and discussion on this topic in the early days of > the Foundation and we made it quite clear that the upgrade path for the Mozilla > Foundation-supported Mozilla Application Suite was the then Mozilla > Foundation-supported Firefox browser and Thunderbird email programs. As far as > I'm aware, that has not been formally revisited and reversed. > Doesn't sound like you're a big fan of the "promoting choice" part of the Mozilla Foundation's goal of "promoting choice and innovation on the internet".
Wolf, it's not a "Corporation" issue. This was decided in the early days of the Mozilla Foundation. It was communicated to both the community and the SeaMonkey team. Adrian, there is no "answer" from Gerv. He may have input, but this decision was finalized literally years ago.
"As I said above, I'm unaware of any revisitation and change in policy and that is why this page is wrong." No, the page is wrong because of the layout. The page informing users about an _unsupported_ path in no way violates the Foundation's choice to move the _supported_ path to Firefox. Making it available is not an endorsement. However, being adamantly against a fair mention of Seamonkey is inherently hostile to the community. A text link is insufficient. De-emphasize the Seamonkey part, put it below the FF part, state that it's unsupported and community-lead only, but stop being obstructionist to non-Firefox projects and to the community as a whole. This doesn't threaten FF in anyway. _THIS_ was not finalized. The supported upgrade paths were. Unless somewhere in that decision it was said that other projects need to count on the Foundation to be protectionist, there's no legit reason to keep SM off that page.
It's not "a page". It's "the page" that informs MAS users that their current browser is no longer maintained. There is simply no way that an unsupported upgrade path is going to be the focus or even share equal focus with the supported path. This is also not about "making it available". SeaMonkey is available to the world. It's about a Mozilla site advertising the upgrade path to existing Mozilla users. It is Mozilla's job to move its user base (MAS users) to the latest supported version.
Whatever this leads to, it's clear that I for myself only work on it if it prominently mentions SeaMonkey as a possible and good upgrade path. I'm dedicating my time mainly to the SeaMonkey project and so a page that doesn't prominently point people to that is not worth my time - esp. as Firefox/MoCo pays people to do such stuff. I tried to resolve this issue in a way that sounded reasonable to me. If that's not appreciated, then someone else should better do that work. And I'll concentrate on stuff that doesn't step on some Firefox-geek's toes.
No, "Mozilla"'s job is to provide good products to its users and honor its obligations such as support paths. You're not fighting IE for marketshare here. And you're not just a version treadmill or there wouldn't be such a focus inside MoCo to make the next version compelling and more user-friendly than the last (other than security fixes, which alone are compelling). his is not a legit economic issue. Unless your honestly afraid this would harm MoCo's revenue (come on, there aren't that many SM users to make a difference, and I doubt Suite is a big money maker as it is) then let the user at least be informed. Go ahead, be persuasive, push FF, but there's no legit reason to reduce SM to light-grey text link below-the-fold so to speak. I don't think anyone is saying SM should be THE focus, so stop with the red herrings. Ditto with equal focus. However, there is no harm in providing choice. And it is about making it available. It really looks like you're going to lengths to hide SM to the very people who would be most interested in it. We all know Suite is dead. No one is debating that, nor trying to keep people from using Firefox. Personally, FF and TB are far superior to the Suite, but I'm not using the suite, so it's not speaking to my needs. SM picks up where the Suite left off, and it's not officially supported by the Foundation or the Corp. However, stating "Also, here's the successor to the Suite. It's not an official Mozilla Foundation product. It's a community run project that tries to carry on the all-in-one nature of the Suite. You're welcome to try it, but all support questions should be directed [here]," would not negatively impact anyone, and _would_ have a positive impact on those wishing to stay with the suite-like package. Robert: Obviously a prominent mention is out of the question as ber the _benevolent_ dictatorship. So a less-than-prominent but _fair_ mention is deserved at least.
(In reply to comment #13) > There is simply no way that an unsupported > upgrade path is going to be the focus or even share equal focus with the > supported path. Does share equal focus mean "appear on the same page" here? It is in the interests of those users (users of the unmaintained MAS 1.7.x, to be clear.) to know that a successor (even if its community maintained, which is reasonable to mention.) to the product they're currently using exists. In addition to Mozilla's new Firefox.
Wolf, the "successor" to the MAS is Firefox. I have not said that SeaMonkey and a description of it as a community maintained suite of apps should not appear on this page. I explicitly said it could.
Code successor not marketing/policy successor. I wasn't clear there. CC'ing pkim for his comments on Attachment 257723 [details]. So hopefully this can be worked out to a solution that's reasonable for both sides.
I would presume the kinds of users running ancient Suite versions are not likely to be technically savvy, and unlikely to understand the concept of a community-maintained browser like SeaMonkey. That's not to say issues like freedom of user choice are unimportant, but this doesn't seem like a productive area to wage war. If this is really about "promoting choice", why not suggest other Mozilla-based browers like Camino and Netscape 8?</troll>
No, Asa, you did _not_ "explicitly say it could". You said "I'm fine with a short description and a text link somewhere on the page," and left it at that. Further, your statements like "It's about a Mozilla site advertising the upgrade path to existing Mozilla users," "There is simply no way that an unsupported upgrade path is going to be the focus or even share equal focus with the supported path," and your continuing statements that Mozilla's job is to push people to FF, and that FF is the official upgrade path lead one to believe that even a text link is only a begrudging compromise. In no way did you make it "explicit" that you were ok with a decent description of SM could appear on the page, and in fact lead everyone to believe that you in fact would prefer no mention of it. Your statements denigrate Seamonkey, and the community as a whole.
I said in comment #9 "I'm fine with a short description and a text link somewhere on the page". That you find that statement inconsistent with my follow-up, "I have not said that SeaMonkey and a description of it as a community maintained suite of apps should not appear on this page" speaks more to your bias here than mine. This whole argument is silly. SeaMonkey can have a description and a link on the page. The focus of the page, however, will be the previously decided (years ago) upgrade path for suite users - Firefox. The page that Robert mocked up and then attached, which Paul Kim mistakenly approved and which Gerv apparently endorsed at FOSDEM is not the page -- or even close to the page, that will be shown to Suite users. Furthermore, it wasn't a red herring to say that SeaMonkey will not get equal focus given that the patch attached to this bug did exactly that (and one could argue that it's placement actually gives it significantly higher focus than Firefox's.) As I said (twice,) SeaMonkey can have a place on this page. We should provide a short description and a link. The focus of the page, though, is to advertise the supported upgrade path for Suite users, not to inform Suite users of the various browser options available.
Then it speaks to the bias of everyone who has commented so far as well. When everyone else is "wrong" it's time to reevaluate what made you think you were "right". Bottom line, you were not clear, deny it all you want, I really don't care. Your first comment (or any comment before now) should then have been "The focus needs to be on Firefox, as that's the supported upgrade path from Mozilla. Seamonkey can stay, but needs deemphasized and noted that it's not official." or something along those lines. Clarity in communication is more important than being right.
"Then it speaks to the bias of everyone who has commented so far as well." That's not an unreasonable view. I'm gonna assume that repeating myself will offer enough clarity for you, Gray (and others,) and be done with this little back and forth. "I have not said that SeaMonkey and a description of it as a community maintained suite of apps should not appear on this page." "SeaMonkey can have a place on this page. We should provide a short description and a link."
> > "Then it speaks to the bias of everyone who has commented so far as well." > That's not an unreasonable view. This does not surprise me. I can repeat myself too. You're clear now. You weren't before.
(In reply to comment #21) > The page that Robert mocked up and then attached, which Paul Kim mistakenly > approved Where in the world did this happen? I see no comment in this bug from Paul endorsing this change, nor do I see any flags for review or approval being set by him. Is there a second side to this issue I am not seeing?
This thread started via email, and I wasn't aware of the history of MAS upgrade paths when I said the mockup looked fine to me. I didn't see any issues with moving the discussion to Bugzilla, and Kairo opened this bug. As is now clear I should have researched the history before responding to Kairo. My apologies for acting too quickly, particularly to the Seamonkey team. I've read through the comments on the bug and I think Asa and Grey's compromise solution (to describe Firefox/Thunderbird as the official upgrade path for Suite users, and to include a secondary link to Seamonkey with details on it being a community project) seems reasonable. I'd like to take on creating a revised mockup and posting it here for feedback -- how does this sound to everyone?
How about a predominant link to "Other Mozilla Products" which links to mozilla.org? Seamonkey is the first mentioned product there. If this compromise is taken, I would recommend changing on Mozilla.org the "other products" section to have a brief description of the software, so: Seamonkey 1.1.1 - browser suite Camino 1.0.4 - browser for mac Sunbird 0.3.1 - calendar
Asa, I guess I don't understand how a browser can be an upgrade path for a browser + e-mail/news client + composer + IRC client. If one takes you literally and "upgrades" to FF, you're going to get asked "Dude! Where's my mail(/news)??" A smaller number of users will still want IRC & composer functions. What will be listed for them?
Let me try that one - It's not about the products, it's about the responsibility to the users. They were using a Mozilla product, and for the ones that are simply using it because they trust Mozilla, the next product for them is Firefox. It would be just as wrong to let people upgrade to seamonkey not understanding what it is and the implications to the amount of quality control Mozilla has over it, as it would be to simply hide Seamonkey from them. FWIW the only suite users I can recall encountering were ones who tried Firefox and went back to suite. Those users will be capable of following a secondary link.
sorry I didn't mean to imply that was all the suite users left, just that *personally* that's who I've encountered, and so I do agree there should be a path to seamonkey for them, but they can handle something that isn't as prominent as a link to firefox.
Blimey... this has all kicked off while I was asleep. This is what happened. I noticed that the Mozilla Corporation had done nothing to notify existing suite users that they have been using a browser with known security flaws for about nine months, and decided to do something. (And I think it's a bit rich to come into this bug now and say "Hey, these are our users!" when this neglect has gone on for so long.) After banging on a few doors and not getting very far, I finally managed to talk to pkim. I discussed the appropriate approach with him, who agreed that something like the current mockup was reasonable, and I asked kairo to produce an implementation. I suggest that anyone still using the Suite will certainly have heard about Firefox (given all the publicity) and, if they haven't upgraded by now, clearly isn't interested in it. However, they may not have heard about Seamonkey, which has had far less publicity. Still, I agree that Firefox is the officially supported upgrade path. Therefore, it seems to me to be right that the two options are presented side-by-side, with the pros and cons of each clearly explained. I don't think the current bullets quite do that - they need work, which I thought I'd done and put in this bug, but clearly failed to hit "submit" yesterday - but I think the approach is right. I would disagree with presenting either Camino or Netscape 8, or linking to "other Mozilla products". Seamonkey is in a unique position here as being the closest of our products in function to what these users are already using - and, given they haven't upgraded to Firefox yet, that is most likely to be what they are looking for. And that means it should be the one presented as an alternative. Asa is correct in saying that, several years ago, we agreed that Firefox would be the official upgrade path for Suite users. And indeed, most of them did upgrade. But that was when the Seamonkey project's future was far more uncertain than it is now. We weren't sure that a community would form, or that they would even reach 1.0, or that they would make the leap to toolkit. All these things have happened or are happening, and it's clear that, as a software project, Seamonkey is a success. So perhaps it's time to revisit that decision. This needs clearing up before we can decide the right path. So I will send an appropriate email to staff, and get back to you. I suggest everyone take a breather meanwhile :-) Gerv
(In reply to comment #31) > I would disagree with presenting either Camino or Netscape 8, or linking to > "other Mozilla products". As a Camino contributor, I'd also disagree with presenting Camino. Most users of Suite and SeaMonkey are not Mac users and, for those that are, Camino isn't a viable replacement of the feature set of Suite. The best interests of Suite users should be kept in mind. So with this change, definitely don't go out of your way to add Camino to any list of available options.
Does anyone have any numbers on how many Suite users there are who are hitting our start page?
> Does anyone have any numbers on how many Suite users there are who are > hitting our start page? Server Ops?
Depends on: 373854
(In reply to comment #33) > Does anyone have any numbers on how many Suite users there are who are hitting > our start page? From bug 373854, around 250,000 Suite users hit the start page daily.
(In reply to comment #35) > From bug 373854, around 250,000 Suite users hit the start page daily. s/daily/yesterday (Tuesday)/
Before going live with this, how about a little updating of the SeaMonkey Homepage first? http://www.Mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ "Resources": anything you want to change/update here now that the New AMO will be Live in a few more hours? https://preview.addons.Mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey "Community & Support": anything here? "Developer Stuff": is everything here current? "Logo & Artwork": looks a bit bare, with no pretty banners, etc. "SeaMonkey Weblog": reads more like ancient history. Thank you, Eddie Maddox SeaMonkey "Desktop Environment" Suite http://www.Mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
Eddie: This doesn't belong here, this bug is ONLY about the Mozilla suite start page, not about SeaMonkey marketing. Please post the SeaMonkey web page stuff to m.d.a.seamonkey
The Mozilla Suite start page has now been replaced with an upgrade warning. The new page has been approved by pkim and cbeard. I hope it strikes a balance between the desire to promote Firefox and Thunderbird, and the legitimate request that Suite users be also made aware of the existence of SeaMonkey. You can see it here: http://www.mozilla.org/start/index-temp.html or, if that 404s, then the webserver has updated and you can therefore see it here: http://www.mozilla.org/start/index.html I have removed the .htaccess which redirected 1.4 to 1.7 users to different directories depending on their User Agent, and so all Mozilla Suite users should now be directed to that single page. I have left the 1.0 start page (dated 2002) as-is for nostalgia. Gerv
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
We have SM users with old profiles getting mislead by this: <friend> What's this about seamonkey being discontinued? <me> according to whom? <friend> when i load it up it tells me i need to upgrade to firefox Can the page UA-sniff for SeaMonkey? It's reasonable for a user to conclude the internet suite they downloaded from Mozilla (which happens to be named "SeaMonkey") is the "mozilla suite" which is no longer supported.
Chris, please file a new bug dependent on this one for the SeaMonkey sniffing issue, I'll try to poke people to get this done.
Attachment #257723 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Product: mozilla.org → Websites
Component: www.mozilla.org → General
Product: Websites → www.mozilla.org
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