Re: Unfulfilled promises... forever experimental extensions... all over again

David Zülke wrote:

Microsoft with it's 95% browser market share [...] has the responsibility

They don't care about 'responsibility' at all

to continue development of Internet Explorer, because otherwise the

IE developement hasn't happened in years, they are just now rebuilding the team they disbanded years(!) ago. Damn, they don't even do security fixes in a timely manner. Responsibility???

progress in web technology (I'm talking about client-side stuff here, CSS, XHTML, foo, bar) basically stalls, as there is no way you can convince all IE users to move over to Firefox

They are only startint to work on IE again as they *do* see other browsers catching up. It is exactly the other way round: the higher the market share the less effort they put into further developement of their product. And it totaly makes sense from their perspektive. There are only two reasons that justify further developement of a commercial product: competition and upgrade sales. In this case, as IE is given away free of charge, competition is the only reason.

Same thing goes for PHP. You've developed something tens or houndreds of thousands of developers all over the world are using.

Well, ever tried to fix an IE bug or tried to add a feature?

They rely on what you tell them,

With the exception of not relying on things being EXPERIMENTAL?

their businesses rely on that, they need to move on, they need reliable stable software. Software they have trust in,

Reliable as in secure? I think we are not that bad on this. Reliable as in stable APIs? Once a function has become stable we try whatever we can to keep it backward compatible at almost all costs. Although it sure hurts sometimes. Reliable as in EXPERIMENTAL stuff will not change or will eventualy be finished? No way

software they believe is made by people listening to their concerns and needs.

And if you here tell them that you don't give a whatever on what they're thinking, you're virtually kneeing them in the guts.

This is a do-o-cracy. Decisions are made by those ho do the stuff and the priorities of those who do are what drives it all. Sharing what is usefull to ourself with others, even outside the inner community of the doers. But fullfilling peoples believes at all costs is usually not a high priority. Input (both positive and negative feedback) is always appreciated but this is *not* a 'your whish is my command' type of relationship. Even if features or timelines have been promissed this does not constitute a formal contract, its more like an informal message of intent. An estimate based on current knowledge and priorities. A developer may underestimate the effort needed to finish and stabelize a feature. Personal priorities may change. And as all of this is voluntary work nobody is to blame for this.

You think we can do better?     We definetly could.

You think we should do better? Maybe. You think we have to be better? Why should we? Just because we do not live up to users believes? Once again: this is a do-o-cracy, not a believe-o-cracy. We could even all walk away from it withoug feeling any guilt. .. -- Hartmut Holzgraefe <hartmut@php.net>