Without the Windows version being available as a MSI, this still isnt going to get enterprise support. At least not support/migration from people deploying FrontMotion's Firefox MSIs.
I think this ESR is purely about extending the release schedule/security fix lifetime. Enterprisy features can be added in the normal releases just as well.
The thing is, enterprise users have been begging Mozilla for official MSI support for years now.
The fact that they still haven't done anything about it, even with a supposed enterprise version kind of indicates that they're still not taking the enterprise seriously.
FrontMotion mentioned in the GP post is probably the most popular one I'm aware of. But it's absurd to have to rely on a third party for what's a basic matter of packaging.
MSI is the standard for packaging applications for deployment in enterprise environments for Windows. Mozilla's prolonged refusal to officially support it amounts to a tacit refusal to properly support enterprise.
This isn't a new issue, nor is it a minor one. The Bugzilla issue for this was opened eight years ago[1] and there still isn't a proper, official deployment solution (and this isn't even getting into the lack of centralized management support).
It isn't a basic matter of packaging. You also need to do very exhaustive testing to make sure it works exactly as it should in all possible cases. Enterprise support is not easy to do.
Honest question: Can you give some examples of other open source projects (not ones run by massive corporations like Google, which obviously can afford to do enterprise support) that have full enterprise support?
I mean, we know who they are. But from the corporate perspective, you're downloading an MSI from a relatively unknown party (when compared to Mozilla). Not encouraging.
"Mike, you do realize that we get about 2 million Firefox downloads per day from regular user types, right? Your “big numbers” here are really just a drop in the bucket, fractions of fractions of a percent of our user base.
Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours. Until we run out of people who don’t have sysadmins and enterprise deployment teams looking out for them, I can’t imagine why we’d focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about."
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[ 73.3 ms ] story [ 1502 ms ] threadThe fact that they still haven't done anything about it, even with a supposed enterprise version kind of indicates that they're still not taking the enterprise seriously.
http://bespokeio.com/
MSI is the standard for packaging applications for deployment in enterprise environments for Windows. Mozilla's prolonged refusal to officially support it amounts to a tacit refusal to properly support enterprise.
This isn't a new issue, nor is it a minor one. The Bugzilla issue for this was opened eight years ago[1] and there still isn't a proper, official deployment solution (and this isn't even getting into the lack of centralized management support).
[1] - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231062
Sure, but other projects manage to do it just fine, without users having to yell to the heavens about it being a dealbreaker for nearly a decade.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/chromebrowser.ht...
I mean, we know who they are. But from the corporate perspective, you're downloading an MSI from a relatively unknown party (when compared to Mozilla). Not encouraging.
"Mike, you do realize that we get about 2 million Firefox downloads per day from regular user types, right? Your “big numbers” here are really just a drop in the bucket, fractions of fractions of a percent of our user base.
Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours. Until we run out of people who don’t have sysadmins and enterprise deployment teams looking out for them, I can’t imagine why we’d focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about."
http://mike.kaply.com/2011/06/23/understanding-the-corporate...
Part of this new ESR process is that 3.6 will go EOL in April.
Asa's opinion there was never the official position nor the position of a majority in Mozilla AFAIK.