This is the most beautiful thing that I have ever read. Not even the folks at FireFox are denying that they broke the public extension interface and yet this yahoo in a comment thread on Scobleizer's blog feels the need to justify the action. First, someone with the dubious handle of “Steve Jobs“ posts the following:
I don't see the point of the whole fuss. FireFox breaks extensions with every major release. And no one gives a crap!
Steve Jobs • 7/29/05; 2:34:16 AM
Good point “Steve“. Although one minor correction I might make is that FireFox does this during a very minor release. Version 1.0.5 is where things went wrong. It's not even a full dot release. So, here's the really beautiful rationalization:
": FireFox doesn't "break" extensions with every major release; it has a policy of not letting you use old, untested versions of extensions with new releases. There is an important difference - it's a policy for the benefit of users, rather than a bug. It's not "Look - my toolbar has mysteriously disappeared" it's "We're sorry, you will have to upgrade your extensions to ensure compatibility."
Nothing short of brilliance! This is the best spin I have seen in a very long time. It's possibly the best spin ever. Forced upgrades. Imagine how revenues will grow!
The implication of this policy, gentle reader, is that anything you write to extend FireFox today is going to have to be updated to work with the next minor update and would seem by definition to be virtually garanteed to not work in any major update.
Dave
Just because I can...