General Discussion • Re: Pale Moon's PR Problem

Ultimately, you are free to develop whatever kind of software you want, however you want. Your users are your fellow pilgrims on this great journey into the future, not your taskmasters. If some users believe one day that Pale Moon concedes too much to contemporary IT trends, they might part ways, and there is no reason this should not be on friendly terms if this should happen; you have faithfully accompanied them for this leg of the journey. Sometimes, people’s interests are just incompatible, and there is nought to do but move on.

Empirically, the people most adamant about retaining every last bit from 2006–12 intact, the ones who are really still using XP today, seem to be tending their own garden without bothering you. (Correct me if I am wrong.) The conservative pressure here would seem to be from people afraid to be cast off from Pale Moon if it no longer meets there needs after enough time has passed. Their interests would be better met by arranging now an alternative plan, which might well involve a Roy Tam-like UXP fork for Windows 7, 32-bit processors or whatever else, before some Microsoft compiler update or whatnot brings the matter to sudden boil. You would have no part in their plans, although this board would, if they can be civil about it, be the ready place for them to discuss their plans.

I think disclosing more about my own attitudes might help. My own principal interest, since I have abandoned anything to do with the great IT combines, is to continue to use this physical computer (mid-2012) as long as it still works. (I have already discussed my current plans for should this computer fail, but the successor would inherit this goal.) It arises, among other places, from a deep-seated belief that one ought to cherish what one already has instead of demanding more and offence at planned obsolescence as business practise. Minding my psychical limits, I also believe in never changing a running system. Conversations here have helped me gather such information that I need to plan, and the facts are such that I doubt I should end up stranded as Pale Moon’s developers pursue their desired direction. Conceivably, if eg Pale Moon adopted a minimum instruction set beyond what this computer can support, and I were thus separated for a time, I could come back after this computer broke, bringing me within the new boundaries.