Firefox version 6 now -- in the future "version unknown"?

[Darren Dirt]

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/08/firefox-6-ships-but-we-shouldnt-really-pay-attention.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

The Mozilla organization has shipped Firefox 6, eight weeks after the release of Firefox 5...

A feature request entered into Mozilla's bug system (feature requests aren't bugs in any traditional sense, but Mozilla uses one system for managing everything) calls for the removal of the version number from Firefox's "About" dialog. Instead, the intent is to make the About box do two things; show the product name and links to legal information, as it already does, and show how long ago Firefox checked that it was up-to-date, with some kind of provision to check right now. There won't be a version number?just an indicator of whether the browser is up-to-date or not.

This was no mere trolling or attempt to start a discussion: the request was made by Asa Dotzler, Firefox's Product lead, and he says he filed the bug at the suggestion of Firefox's usability lead, Alex Limi. The desire to get rid of the version number is coming from the top.



...
The reaction, however, was almost universally negative.

[Mr. Analog]

This is fairly old news but Firefox decided to do away with version numbers but there has been significant developer backlash over this because like it or not sometimes different browser versions don't implement "standard" features the same way.

If it gets harder to develop for / fix bugs in then it will fall by the wayside forcing people to adopt browsers that developers can code around.