Open source closed devs
Most users aren't techies and rely on the Devs producing something they feel happy and comfortable with. And that means that if the developers are serious about making the product widely used, they have to respond to users. And not simply to some ideal dream of a product. Browser or whatever.
So, for example, most users who install add-ons would like to know if anything new, interesting or useful has come along. I'd assume that anyone developing an add-on would like its birth announced to the world. PM has not got a " new add-ons " option. Its devs refuse to add one on the basis that they "want all add ons treated equally". Which manages to be both frustratingly illogical and frustratingly unhelpful. Because a new add on is not being treated "equally" if no one knows it's arrived. And since the addons are grouped into function categories there's a good chance that users never even realise that there is some extra functionality. The more imaginative and novel an addon is the less likely that it is that anyone would ever find out about it.
And of course umpteen forks is not the solution that many seem to think it is. Saying "If you don't like it you can fork off" just, at best, makes a confusing sea of similar but competing alternatives - and users ( remember them) aren't going to know which to err use Especially if each fork has a different subset of likes and dislikes.
The customer may not know best, but they know what they feel like using. Creating hobby FOSS may well be fun for its developers. Becoming quite well known as a minority niche product is probably quite exhilarating. There may even be a certain degree of self-righteousness. But it isn't a good way forward for the product itself. Not if you genuinely aim to compete with Google's Chrome, Microsoft's Outlook etc.
And then we have Linux.....
Biting the hand that feeds IT
