
Mozilla ponders policy change after Firefox extension battle - soundsop
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/mozilla-ponders-policy-change-after-firefox-extension-battle.ars
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noaharc
"The developers behind the two extensions turned the browser into a
battleground as their conflict escalated."

"Maone found new ways to work around the filters, but Ares2 consistently
retaliated by adding increasingly draconian rules to the filter list."

"Eventually, Ares2 added rules that fundamentally broke the NoScript website.
Maone lost patience and decided to use his own extension to fight back."

I am sympathetic to the notion that there are two sides to any argument, and
Adblock is certainly an issue for many websites. However, framing this like a
"controversial altercation" between two loose cannons does not do justice to
the facts.

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iamcalledrob
I think in issues like this, Mozilla's policy is largely irrelevant.

Policy is just words, and people will still do stupid things.

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oomkiller
Why? It worked itself out, the community process worked, therefore no changes
need to be made.

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jrockway
What is a policy going to do? Sometimes I think the MoFo doesn't really
understand open source. When anyone can fork your project at any time, you
can't impose any restrictions. If you do, your project gets forked, and you
lose control.

(They tried this once with their icons and the name "Firefox". The result is
that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox" anymore, they use
"Iceweasel". Wow, MoFo, you sure showed us!)

Along the same lines, there is an easy workaround for the NoScript/ABP
debacle. You fork NoScript and remove the unwanted features. Then you tell
everyone to use your fork instead. Problem solved. No policies needed. It's
open source, guys.

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statictype
>The result is that I don't actually know of anyone that uses "Firefox"
anymore, they use "Iceweasel"

On the other hand, I don't know anyone else who has heard of IceWeasel and
while I know what it is, I've never used it myself.

~~~
jrockway
I guess what I meant to say was "all people that use Debian are cool" ;)

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yason
What we're talking about is the gecko/xul platform behind Firefox. By
definition it's a platform and should stay neutral about what is allowed and
what is not. While the Mozilla platform is indeed more integrated and
monolithic than, for example, an operating system, it's still an application
platform.

All platforms have applications. Could you imagine GNU or Gnome setting
policies for how different programs shouldn't mess and compete with each
other? In an open market for applications, the bad applications just get
weeded out for good. There's no need for Mozilla to intervene; the power of
Mozilla platform is that extensions can do powerful stuff, upto and including
battling each other. You can't go rule out just those things.

* * *

(Or are we in for a lengthy philosophical debate of whether it's possible to
write a platform that only allows "good" things to happen? I don't think so.
Those who disagree can go and drool Apple's iPhone application SDK and review
process :-))

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duskwuff
As above (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593872>): this isn't a platform
issue; it's a distribution issue. The platform will almost certainly continue
to support malicious and ill-behaved extensions, but a.m.o won't.

