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**fidesratioque** · Jul 25, 2009, 04:20 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

@Fintan: The problem in this case is, there is no choice per se. If there was a simple notice "Yo, FF 3.5 is available, but it might break your add-ons, do you want it?" there'd be no problem.

I use the same add-ons in Firefox in OS X, Vista and Linux. The update broke all of 'em without warning. That's what happens when you allow customization. Safari and MSIE don't have that problem because there are no add-ons to break!

**undoIT** · Jul 25, 2009, 07:41 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by fidesratioque

My two bits: I updated to FF 3.5 on my Mac, on Vista and on Linux. In Linux I just installed through the package manager. So what if it says 'Shiretoko'? In six months the next version of Kubuntu will be out and I'll do my usual backup + fresh install. That will bring all my software up to date and I won't have any further problems.

There's really no reason to need to be on the bleeding edge when new stable versions of the OS with tons of built-in software are released on a handy half-yearly cycle. My thanks go to all the developers and maintainers who make that possible!

I don't care so much that it says "Shiretoko" in the title bar or that it is called "Preview Browser" with unrecognizable blue icon in the favorites.

I'm more thinking of my friend who just got her laptop back from her dad and who will be using Kubuntu (Linux) for the first time. It is daunting enough learning a new operating system. She of course wants the new Firefox. I was chatting her instructions last night. So, imagine if your first experience of Linux is this:

You need to install Firefox from the terminal. Because Firefox is packaged for Gnome (Ubuntu) it has a lot of unnecessary dependencies that will get installed. Open a terminal window and run this command:

Code:

sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install firefox-3.5

She gets it installed and I can imagine the unspoken response to the "Preview Browser" called Shiretoko with blue icon. Probably something like this, "Linux is funky and a pain in the ass".

So then I send her a link in Kopete. She clicks it and it opens in Konqueror. She says, "I thought I already set Firefox as default."

For some reason, KDE doesn't recognize it when you set Firefox as default browser from within Firefox. Then, I guide her through the system settings where she can manually set the browser default. When I first did this, I had to type in "firefox-3.5" to get it working even though another user recommended "firefox-3". Now, when I went back to check it was set as "firefox-3". Go figure! I hope "firefox-3" worked for her.

And then, the default browser setting doesn't work in all applications. I'm glad she doesn't have Thunderbird installed.

I'm not complaining. I love and promote Linux. What I am trying to make a point about is that this kind of stuff needs to be a lot smoother if Linux and open source software is going to appeal to the broader audience.

The other thing is, most people who are average computer users don't do a backup and fresh install every 6 months like we do. Hopefully, there won't be any problems for my friend if she does a dist-upgrade and the "Preview Browser" will then be called "Firefox" and have the normal icon.

**lmilano** · Jul 25, 2009, 09:24 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Quite frankly, the bigger audience doesnt even know there is a firefox or at what version it is, they just need to Connect to The Internet and go to Facebook and Youtube, you know

Geeky people do, but geeks find their way around 8)

**aged hippy** · Jul 25, 2009, 09:34 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by undoIT

The other thing is, most people who are average computer users don't do a backup and fresh install every 6 months like we do.

.... as infrequently as that??

**lmilano** · Jul 25, 2009, 10:05 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by aged hippy

Originally posted by undoIT

The other thing is, most people who are average computer users don't do a backup and fresh install every 6 months like we do.

.... as infrequently as that??

Ha! Well, I guess this is a good point, maybe the LTS releases should have backports of that kind! For the rest, regular releases, I dont see the need, and quite honestly, they should be backported a couple months later to make sure things have stabilized

Keep in mind that the whole goal of a LTS is giving a stable, solid desktop; breaking Firefox would not count as such

**aged hippy** · Jul 25, 2009, 10:28 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by lmilano

Keep in mind that the whole goal of a LTS is giving a stable, solid desktop; breaking Firefox would not count as such

I'll leave the bleeding-edge stuff to those with plenty of bandages.

**GreyGeek** · Jul 25, 2009, 12:44 PM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by wkdboi

......
btw, I met Santa yesterday, and he and the Easter Bunny agree you've been a very good boy this year. Look forward to Christmas.
....

Cute yourself. Ridicule instead of factual response is the classic retort/tactic of the Astroturfer. It is a common political attack technique, and you are not the first and certainly not the best to use it. In fact, your attempt is so juvenile it would make Saul D. Alinksy blush with shame. You probably don't know who he is. He wrote the book the person who trained Pres. Obama how to be a "community organizer" used, and which Obama used to train other ACORN volunteers. The book is called "Rule For Radicals". On p. 128 is rule #5 "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counter attack ridicule. It also infuriates the opposition, who then reacts to your advantage."

Too bad it didn't work for you.

In my last first post I responded to your claims of being a long time Linux user and programmer by applying Alinsky's 4th rule to them. And, considering your claims, it was a reasonable application of that rule.

As for your blablabla about me just bitching and not helping - feel free to hand over the necessary login credentials for me to change the firefox package requirements, and I'll happily go in and change them.

" ... I'll happily go in and change them." I am sure that if you present the proper programming credentials to the FF dev team and prove your merit they will add you to the team and give you the ability to submit patches for evaluation and possible addition to the FF code base. Asking me for them is a debate dodge, i.e. nonsense, and you know it.

Because, as we had already established, with 3.5.1 full up, that's the only thing missing - a simple package requirement change.

We? Are you referring to a couple other low number posters? You haven't "established" anything. Ranters agreeing with each other is still unsubstantiated ranting. For all I know they could be in league with you. That "gang-up" technique is commonly used by Astroturfers. By the way, you ridiculed me for saying you had 11 posts, implying that the number was incorrect so the rest of my response was just as inaccurate. Nice trick, but it won't fly. That is just another example of how you distort facts. The FACT is that when I wrote my response to your rant the number of posts beneath your icon was "11". As I write this the number is "12". I am replying to your 12th post. You are still a newcomer to this forum, and jumping in almost immediately with an anti-Linux, pro-MS rant is classic Astroturfing.

But hey, why acknowledge and discuss an undeniable fact if you can just pretend there is no issue and the dissenter is Microsoft in disguise, right? After all, there is no diversity, and all Linux users in the whole wide world think, talk and use exactly like you, right? So obviously, if there is no problem for you, there is no problem for anyone! Hail GreyGeek, King of the Linux Users!

The only undeniable fact is that you are posting on this forum a putative complaint about the behavior of FF3.5. We have to take your word on face value that you are actually attempting to use it on Kubuntu. That becomes impossible to do when you surround your complaint with an anti-Linux, pro-Windows RANT, making unsubstantiated claims and preemptively insulting any who might disagree with your rant. At least THAT proves you've made rants before, on other forums, and had people challenge your post and identify you for what you are.

And I apologize for my impertinent attempt to actually compare Firefox to Firefox. I mean, clearly, the Firefox update procedure under Windows is crafted by Microsoft, so comparing the Windows and Linux Firefox update procedures is totally Microsoft propaganda and has nothing to do with the topic at hand - updating Firefox. Obviously me mentioning Firefox under Windows gives me away as a Microsoft shill, because anything running under Windows is 110% Microsoft software, and even thinking about it is a Thought Crime.

Your "apology" is indistinguishable from Crocodile tears. The only crime taking place is you associating your anti-Linux rant with "thinking".

......
In addition, even if that is the reasoning behind the decision not to make 3.5 the firefox dependency - don't you agree Canonical could at least say something? Just a simple "Listen up, we don't want people to accidentally break their add-ons, so we're not offering 3.5 as an automatic update - you can install it manually by typing 'sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5', follow this link to the forum for more information."
It took me less than a minute to type that - is a one-sentence-post for clarity really so much to ask for?

How long it takes you to write a paragraph doesn't say anything about your abilities or motives. Neither does your "analysis" of Canonicals reasoning. While it is true a frustrated Linux user could write that in a minute, it is also true that a well rehearsed and practiced Astroturfer, working from the same PR memo, could do so as well.

It is also true that if you have as much experience with Linux as your claim, the "FF3.5 problem" you rant about could have been properly addressed in a minute as well.

You ask what seems to be a civilized question, and seek your fellow ranters to agree. "don't you agree Canonical could at least say something?" It sounds so reasonable, but it is also total nonsense. IF you really wanted to contact Canonical and ask them a question you could have easily used their "Contact Us" link (http://www.canonical.com/aboutus/contactus) on their web page, or you could have joined their elists and asked. With your claimed computer experience you would have known that, too.

There ARE some Linux users who get frustrated and vent in this and other forums. This is understandable because most newbies, just migrating from Windows or Macs, have not had years of experience with Linux and most are not programmers. You claim both. They also do NOT understand that developers do NOT visit forums as a source of bug reports. IF you were a programmer you would understand that as well. A programmer volunteering his evenings and weekends to write code for Linux users has to maximize his writing and debugging time. He does that by monitoring BUGZILLA sites to which users post their documented bugs and their wish lists. Life to to short to waste time visiting ALL of the many Linux forums, blogs and news sites searching for and reading rants like yours searching for ones which MIGHT contain useful debugging information to apply to the app he is programming or maintaining.

It is for them that I respond to your rant. I closed my first response by asking how many Linux newbies did you hope to kill and drive back to Windows by detonating your vest in this forum, because that is EXACTLY what you rant would do, and what I believe is what you wanted it to do. To just let your rant lay there, unchallenged, would be to acknowledge it as true by my silence. Silence is consent.

I also responded to your rant to let Linux newbies know that ranting is an insulting form of requesting help. This forum and other forums are like community centers, built by and maintained (also usually by volunteers) as a place were Linux users can congregate for mutual support and help. Discussion too, but the "Software Support" section is not the place to discuss or debate. Coming in here and ranting is, IMO, identical to a guest coming into a physical community center and relieving himself by peeing on the floor, the walls, the furniture and the other guests, when he should have visited the Community Center's restroom, which is provided for that reason. The Bugzilla is that restroom, and that is the location to relieve yourself of any bug data or wishes for changes. Don't forget to use paper (spell check the report) and flush (commit the report).

Being the programmer you claim to be you've probably written apps and have had experience with someone making unreasonable complaints about your code at improper times and places. You visit the break room and while setting there with your friends some jerk comes in and begins speaking with his friends setting with him at his table in a voice loud enough for EVERYONE in the break room to hear, ranting about how bad your program is, how it doesn't work, etc...., but he never has once visited your cubical to discuss his problem or even call you asking help. Even the BEST of programmers have experienced that scenario because it depends more on the psych of ranter rather than the quality of the programs or the skill of the programmer. But of course, being a programmer, you know this. It makes your rant all the LESS believable as a valid cry for help with FF3.5 and more like the increasing number of TE inspired attacks on Linux forums everywhere, primarily because of the MONO debate. I call them Canopus Attacks because such attack techniques are always similar to the way Microsoft employees, which we now know were James Plamondon's Technical Evangelists, shut down the Compuserve Canopus Form (which was an OS/2 user hangout) using them.

**aged hippy** · Jul 25, 2009, 12:56 PM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Just for interest's sake, GreyGeek, what is an "Astroturfer"?

If you call someone an 'astroturfer', is it a polite way of implying that they dwell beneath a bridge?

... just wondering.

**fidesratioque** · Jul 25, 2009, 02:08 PM

Re: Firefox 3.5

@undoIT

From my own modest experience, my girlfriend and some of her friends and family have installed Linux on their systems, after seeing me running it on my own. They were attracted for the following reasons:

1. It just worked
2. It was clean (i.e. free of spam, crapware)
3. Intuitive interface

That's it. They didn't want to install the latest software. They didn't want to tinker around with the default settings. They didn't want any complications.

I set it up for them so that updates would run automatically. They just went off and started surfing, editing documents and all the rest. I taught her how to use the package manager so she could install Minesweeper.

Contrast her Linux experience with mine:

She has had 0 problems and does not tinker. I tinker all the time and am constantly destroying my system.

If you're like most people you just want it to work, and are happy when it does. If you're like me you're constantly digging around and getting into trouble. Your Linux experience depends totally on your computing habits.

**russlar** · Jul 25, 2009, 02:33 PM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by aged hippy

Just for interest's sake, GreyGeek, what is an "Astroturfer"?

If you call someone an 'astroturfer', is it a polite way of implying that they dwell beneath a bridge?

... just wondering.

Astroturfing

Astroturfing is a word in English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach", "awareness", etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research.

**Nakrull** · Jul 25, 2009, 03:35 PM

Re: Firefox 3.5

well well well
nice bashing nice counter-bashing
i love posts like this but graygeek is right u pissed at the break room and not in the rest room
(i hope i dint confuse those i usually do when im drunk but that another point :P)
whats the ****ing astroturfers doing here (i learned a new word today

i had to use it)

a few weeks ago my father told me that ff-3.5 was out because he read it at his Austrian news site
so i checked it out... no repos? oh well go to ff site... ahh there it is... downloaded the .deb
popped into kubu AND YES IT WARNED ME AT SITE THAT MY ADD-ONS WOULD BREAK
so i was happy when it parallel installed... and it wasn't called shiretoko
by the way whats the big deal its just a name when i got rid of IE like 10 years ago i had no idea that firefox or opera were browsers and not a pokemon or a salt cracker (in Paraguay there is a salt cracker whit the name opera)
a week lather the addons i use where working whit ff3.5
and yes im still a linux noob but that doesnt mean that i rant about it because im to stupid to research
i ****ing learn and then complain when i know what in talking about not like wkdboi (Windows Kisser Doing B.s. On Internet ) because how do we really know ur a programmer or that u know how to work ur linux
actions mean more than words so prove it
come clean and show us ur credentials or give us a program u made that was not stolen from another

and yes i still have to use xp because im a hardcore gamer and ****ing m$ monopolized the gaming industry whit their stupid directx (so why the **** do i have to install vista Virus Infested Spyware Trojans Addwared so i get the better graphics of DX10) so i ****ing dint
**** ur only pissed because the EU said to m$ they wanted win7 to come whitout IE
so u just want that all other OS suck in the same way so u will get paid from ur masters

hail kubuntu long live linux

ps: **** = Force Under Credential Kiding

**GreyGeek** · Jul 25, 2009, 04:39 PM

Re: Firefox 3.5

Originally posted by aged hippy

...
what is an "Astroturfer"?
...

Any explanation is deficient if it doesn't being with the origins of the term:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/871631

Microsoft Supported by Dead People

A "grass roots" campaign to support Microsoft in the antitrust suit brought by the government instead appears to be a carefully orchestrated effort by a number of pro-Microsoft groups.

August 23, 2001
By Thor Olavsrud: ...

Apparently the dead are fed up with the government's antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times Thursday morning, letters purportedly written by at least two dead people have made their way onto the desk of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. The letters asked Shurtleff to go easy on the company.

According to the article, the letters, along with those of 400 Utah citizens, are part of a nationwide "grassroots" campaign orchestrated by pro-Microsoft groups Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) and Citizens Against Government Waste. The groups receive some funding from Microsoft but won't disclose how much.

The Times reported that the ATL calls citizens and says it is conducting a poll about the Microsoft case. Respondents who say they support the company are then sent individually written letters on personalized stationary, with varying wording, color and typeface, along with hand stamped, pre-addressed envelopes. The envelopes are addressed to their state attorney generals, President Bush and their Congressional representatives.

ATL Executive Director Jim Prendergrast first said respondents who expressed support for Microsoft were only given suggestions about what to write in their own letters. But after he was asked why some phrases were identical, he admitted that his group wrote the letters, according to the Times.

Citizens Against Government Waste, on the other hand, distributed identical letters to citizens. Those varied only by the signature attached. The two letters from beyond the grave came from the Citizens Against Government Waste crop. According to the Times, family members crossed out the names and signed for them. Another letter was sent from "Tuscon, Utah," a city that doesn't even exist.

Regulators evidently became suspicious when they noticed that some of the same phrases appeared in numerous letters, and that some return addresses were invalid.

To find out more about the "ATL" you should read the following page:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...ogy_Leadership

If the 10 groups listed as "founding" members only 3 are not "front" groups but have created the others listed there. Two no longer exist.

One of the members, the ACT, was created to help Microsoft fight against the DOJ by lobbying Congress and funding pro-MS ads that appeared to be expressing "popular" opinion.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/01...roup_backs_ms/
When Microsoft got in trouble in Europe for doing the same unethical or illegal acts they got away with in America, the ACT established an office in Switzerland in 2005 to begin lobbying European government the way they did Congress.

Johnathan Zuker, the CEO of ACT went a step further. He infiltrated the European Open Source Software Workgroup and added edits that turned it from a future game plan for OSS in Europe into an MS PR memo.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/How_to_Hij...Strategy_Paper
That article gives a before and after comparisons of how Zucker blunted the force of the OSS argument.

WIkeleaks explains why exposing the infiltration is important:

This file is an edited version of the EU OSS Strategy draft with the input of Jonathan Zuck, President of the Association for Competitive Technology, an organisation that has strong ties with Microsoft

The file is a draft for an expert panel formed by the European Commission. This panel is divided into workgroup (IPR, Open Source, digital life, etc.) ACT and Comptia have been infiltrating every workgroup, even the one on Open Source (WG 7). They are doing the best they can to drown any initiative that would not only promote OSS in Europe but also that could help Europe create a successful European software sector.

The audience for this document could be journalists who would be interested in getting to know more how lobbies of all kind influence the European institutions. Here it is perhaps even more stringent as ACT is clearly an US organization with ties to Microsoft. Verifications might not be easy as this is an internal draft. The best contact might be commission personnel: Lars.PEDERSEN@ec.europa.eu; Michel.Lacroix@ec.europa.eu

It has been leaked as it is important to have the public know how actual policy making is being influenced by lobbies that are precisely under the legal scrutiny of the European Commission. The urgency of the publication of this document is real in the sense that outside pressure would foce the Commission to "clean the committees" or at least give a lesser credit to the work of this workgroup.

This is yet another example of Microsoft holding out an Olive Branch in public but sending its paid sycophants in secret to do it's dirty work. In view of this it amazes me that any Penguin could talk of being "OS agnostic", much less an MS technology fanboi.

**wkdboi** · Jul 26, 2009, 12:57 AM

Re: Firefox 3.5

@Fintan:
I am aware that, under Kubuntu, FF 3.5 is not an upgrade, but a separate installation. That's part of the issue. Let's hear Mozilla, arguably an authority on FF 3.5, on the issue: