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Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

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Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#381

Post by busterarm »

somerandom2407 wrote: post #309
busterarm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're at a really dangerous point with browsers at the moment where there's really no consumer-friendly option available. I'm scared to say that Safari comes closest but you're just in Apple's walled garden then instead of someone elses'. Our only hope seems to lie with Ladybird, if that even ends up being good and it seems extensions aren't on the agenda at least for a while.

Have you heard of Brave? It's a great browser with a built-in ad blocker founded by Brendan Eich, one of the co-founders of Mozilla and the creator of Javascript. I'm not a shill, I swear - I just think it's a great initiative that should be more well known than it is.

Brave is Chromium/Chrome.

Every browser alternatives you can reasonably choose today is going to be either Blink (Chromium-based) or Gecko (Firefox-based). And then you have WebKit (Safari).

Ladybird, Flow and Dillo are really the only true alternative browsers in active development other than a few others running on niche operating systems (to which I'm throwing in all of the DOS browsers...).

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#382

Post by thatguy288 »

sfink wrote: post #310

That sucks. I work for Mozilla, but nowhere near Addons so I don't know what pressures they're under or whatever. But if I ran the zoo... this is gorhill we're talking about. We ought to just make him an add-on reviewer with full rights, and tell him it's ok if the only add-ons he reviews are his own. We do not need to vet either his competence or trustworthiness; we have vastly more historical data backing him up th…

Probably a big ask, but could you find out why one is not allowed to add your own root cert to FF and sign an addon yourself, instead being forced to use an ESR/develop/nightly version and setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false, significantly reducing your security?

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#383

Post by amiga386 »

latexr wrote: post #373
amiga386 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anodyne ass-covering apology they did send out, is massively more humiliating for Mozilla than a sincere mea-culpa would have been. Hill made their initial emails public and the discussion of AMO's incompetence had already happened. Mozilla have been able to see this and formulate a response. Their response was not a full PR face-saving, it was a single further email from the AMO review system. That speaks volume…

Look, I’m not taking Mozilla’s side. As should be obvious by my other comments on this thread, I think Raymond Hill should do what they think is right for themselves and the project. But I’m trying to have a productive conversation on what would be a realistic response that Mozilla could have plausibly sent that would show true remorse and constitute a proper apology. Insulting them and giving absurd examples that wo…

That's what my mooted better-apology email covered. Acknowledge the failings of their processes. Mozilla should stop thinking they're a big swinging dick of a "platform" like Google and Apple are, instead accept they're reliant on continuing donations of time and effort by volunteers and it needs to keep them sweet.

Edit: and if they want to continue thinking they're a "platform", they need to invest in more and better staff for doing these reviews they insist on. They need to accept that false positives are just as bad, if not worse, than false negatives.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#384

Post by saurik »

latexr wrote: post #295
amiga386 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our review processes are not fit for purpose. We commit to replacing them with ones which acknowledge our entire ecosystem is built on the goodwill of unpaid volunteers, and we must not squander their time or resources. People like you are our lifeblood and we must not lose your trust." "We admit we used automated scanning here and tried to pass it off as human review. We got caught. Badly. All our future scans will…

Come on, be realistic. They’re not going to grovel and humiliate themselves over it, especially on a first apology contact. Expecting that kind of response would be ridiculous. The other comment was much more plausible. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41711187 I’m interested in what the original commenter thought, though.

That reply essentially sounds like "We realize you are in a position of power over us and so we should have been more careful; we thereby explicitly note the power imbalance and pledge to respect you--specifically, just you--a bit more because of it (though let's not get into the details of how)."... which is, I guess, an "apology" of sorts, but it isn't even close to an apology for the thing they actually did wrong.

FWIW, the comment you were replying to had a bit of hyperbole in it, and I guess you seem to be expecting it to be an exact quote? I think that same sentiment can be done in a way that is more neutral in tone, which is what seems to be irking you? Which is awkward, I guess, as, frankly, the one you prefer comes off much more to me as "groveling": the issue at hand is procedural and technical and maybe a bit political, but that reply is intensely personal and is directly "bending the knee" to Gorhill while not admitting any actual mistake.

But like, maybe, sometimes, an apology inherently requires some humility, and if Mozilla isn't willing to actually state that they did wrong -- not that Gorhill deserves respect, not that this situation went badly, certainly not merely that Gorhill felt bad about it -- then what, pray tell, even is an apology?

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#385

Post by suprjami »

horsawlarway wrote: post #292
open-paren wrote: post #117

I manage a medium-sized browser extension at work. We also offer(ed) it on Firefox. But I have spent the past year struggling to get back into Mozilla store after a manual review. As far as I can tell, there are maybe two reviewers that are based in Europe (Romania?). The turn around time is long when I am in the US, and it has been rife with this same kind of "simple mistake" that takes 2 weeks to resolve. "You need…

Similar boat. I release an extension with about 1 million installs across Chrome/Firefox/Edge for work. Firefox (despite being the smallest usage) is utterly insane with regards to process. They demand a reproducible build, but then can't do things like install the right version of yarn (no - npm install -g yarn is not correct, our readme says it in bold like 5 times and provides the exact correct command to install…

> I'm fairly convinced they're just milking the google search deal income for as a much as it's worth

That's exactly what the ex-McKinsey C-suite are doing. Regular employee talent suffers because of it, as you've found.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#386

Post by suprjami »

munch117 wrote: post #254
shadowgovt wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is, indeed, the case that they don't bump the entire account to a higher tier of service if one of their products justifies it, they've fundamentally conflated the technology with the humanity of the system and this is a predictable consequence. They're the browser with 2% market share. They're lucky he didn't also pull uBlock Origin because he felt insulted and let users figure it out. He doesn't owe Mozilla t…

We all agree that this case is a very bad outcome for Mozilla. What I don't agree with, is that a system that is based on higher tiers for entire accounts, is necessarily better. If such a tier exists, then all the big players will apply pressure to be put in that tier. Suppose Amazon tries for that - surely they'll get it. And then they'll use it, not just for "the Amazon app", but for every crappy outsourced app th…

> What I don't agree with, is that a system that is based on higher tiers for entire accounts, is necessarily better.

Almost every business looks after their biggest customer better than their smallest customer.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#387

Post by dogleash »

latexr wrote: post #373
amiga386 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anodyne ass-covering apology they did send out, is massively more humiliating for Mozilla than a sincere mea-culpa would have been. Hill made their initial emails public and the discussion of AMO's incompetence had already happened. Mozilla have been able to see this and formulate a response. Their response was not a full PR face-saving, it was a single further email from the AMO review system. That speaks volume…

Look, I’m not taking Mozilla’s side. As should be obvious by my other comments on this thread, I think Raymond Hill should do what they think is right for themselves and the project. But I’m trying to have a productive conversation on what would be a realistic response that Mozilla could have plausibly sent that would show true remorse and constitute a proper apology. Insulting them and giving absurd examples that wo…

> But I’m trying to have a productive conversation on what would be a realistic response that Mozilla could have plausibly sent that would show true remorse and constitute a proper apology.

For a though experiment lets take those suggestions earlier in the thread that you already dismissed. Make them 10% less blunt. Have they become realistic? No? OK, another 10% less blunt. Keep going until it seems realistic. Does it still show true remorse? No? Quelle surprise! I don't think there is any overlap to be found in this Venn Diagram.

The closest thing we might ever see is the mozilla dev elsewhere in this thread. They're opining that mozilla should probably just give Hill reviewer creds so he can rubber stamp his own addons and explaining why.

I'm not saying that if Mozilla were to give him those permissions that it would constitute an apology. I'm saying that the case this Mozilla dev is making, that alone is already more remorse from Mozilla about how broken their internal process and priorities are, more than any "realistic" official communication from Mozilla will show.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#388

Post by suprjami »

elAhmo wrote: post #90
InsomniacL wrote: post #38

> The organization issued an apology for the "mistake" and recommended to Hill to reach out whenever he has questions or concerns about a review. Before taking drastic action like pulling addons from the store, Mozilla should reach out if they have questions or concerns about a review.

It appears all of the companies that are gatekeepers to apps, extensions and similar user-generated stuff are really quick to overreact and unless you are a high-profile person, have a lot of followers or a really popular app or an extension, good luck resolving it in a timely manner.

This is literally the most high profile person Mozilla has. He's carrying the entire browser.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#389

Post by latexr »

dogleash wrote: post #387
latexr wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I’m not taking Mozilla’s side. As should be obvious by my other comments on this thread, I think Raymond Hill should do what they think is right for themselves and the project. But I’m trying to have a productive conversation on what would be a realistic response that Mozilla could have plausibly sent that would show true remorse and constitute a proper apology. Insulting them and giving absurd examples that wo…

> But I’m trying to have a productive conversation on what would be a realistic response that Mozilla could have plausibly sent that would show true remorse and constitute a proper apology. For a though experiment lets take those suggestions earlier in the thread that you already dismissed. Make them 10% less blunt. Have they become realistic? No? OK, another 10% less blunt. Keep going until it seems realistic. Does…

> Make them 10% less blunt.

That’s… Not how communication works.

> Have they become realistic? No? OK, another 10% less blunt. Keep going until it seems realistic. Does it still show true remorse? No? Quelle surprise!

What a bizarre straw man. You invent an argument unrelated to what the other person said, then argue with yourself pretending to know what the other person would respond ultimately making the imaginary opponent agree with you. That’s quite something.

Your post is so far removed from the point of the thread I have no idea how to respond to it. Nor would I want to, I believe this has gone so far off the rails there’s no salvaging it.

Again, I’m not defending Mozilla. Anyone who cared to find my other comments on the thread can easily verify I defended Raymond Hill from the start. The one thing I was interested in with the original question were serious arguments of what Mozilla could have done better. Straw man arguments lacking in empathy that makes everyone on the other side look like clowns are unproductive.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#390

Post by phatfish »

horsawlarway wrote: post #292
open-paren wrote: post #117

I manage a medium-sized browser extension at work. We also offer(ed) it on Firefox. But I have spent the past year struggling to get back into Mozilla store after a manual review. As far as I can tell, there are maybe two reviewers that are based in Europe (Romania?). The turn around time is long when I am in the US, and it has been rife with this same kind of "simple mistake" that takes 2 weeks to resolve. "You need…

Similar boat. I release an extension with about 1 million installs across Chrome/Firefox/Edge for work. Firefox (despite being the smallest usage) is utterly insane with regards to process. They demand a reproducible build, but then can't do things like install the right version of yarn (no - npm install -g yarn is not correct, our readme says it in bold like 5 times and provides the exact correct command to install…

It sounds like they are doing their job attempting to review random code from strangers to be honest.
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