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Deployment:Deploying Firefox: Difference between revisions
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=== large group of possible users left out === | |||
=== large group of possible users left out due to missing tools === | |||
One of the in my opinion most important group of users appears to be left out: | One of the in my opinion most important group of users appears to be left out: | ||
the sometimes self-learned, part- or even free-time working operators managing networks with roughly 5-20 systems up to administrators of networks with 50-500 systems or more. | the sometimes self-learned, part- or even free-time working operators managing networks with roughly 5-20 systems up to administrators of networks with 50-500 systems or more. | ||
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Quite often these operators and admins already have had a hard time to explain to dubious superiors that 'It`s Opensource - we don`t pay licence fees - it`s free' as well as 'No we can`t buy a support contract from mozilla, but we won`t need one', often promised 'it`ll work like the other browser' and finally gotten a cautious approval with typically either none or a very small time budget, also beeing often expected to do unpaid overtime once the approved time budget is excessed. | Quite often these operators and admins already have had a hard time to explain to dubious superiors that 'It`s Opensource - we don`t pay licence fees - it`s free' as well as 'No we can`t buy a support contract from mozilla, but we won`t need one', often promised 'it`ll work like the other browser' and finally gotten a cautious approval with typically either none or a very small time budget, also beeing often expected to do unpaid overtime once the approved time budget is excessed. | ||
Knowing they`ll be the one pointed at if something later breaks or just appears to be broken, they prefer to play it safe: minimal configuration and settings, none or just a few small extensions (eg. duplicate tab but avoiding Mozbackup), unwilling to search the web for non-standard tools and to read several tutorials on 'how to repackage firefox', they just want and need 'tools that work'. | Knowing they`ll be the one pointed at if something later breaks or just appears to be broken, they prefer to play it safe: minimal configuration and settings, none or just a few small extensions (eg. duplicate tab but avoiding Mozbackup), unwilling to search the web for non-standard tools and to read several tutorials on 'how to repackage firefox', they just want and need 'tools that work'. | ||
With firefox lacking these 'official', easy to use tools to customize, reconfigure, repack and deploy via standard distribution methods as well as no means to remotely maintain already deployed configurations, extensions and their settings, these operators and admins have to choices: | With firefox lacking these 'official', easy to use tools to customize, reconfigure, repack and deploy via standard distribution methods as well as no means to remotely maintain already deployed configurations, extensions and their settings, these operators and admins have to choices: | ||
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This group is especially in need of tools, reference / example solutions etc. | This group is especially in need of tools, reference / example solutions etc. | ||
==== slashdot discussion - some user comments ==== | |||
Source: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/11/0913207 | |||
That's great information; but at the same time it's actually a really good example of lack of support contributing to so many corporations /not/ willing to use FF. | |||
After all, it's not really practical for organizations that rely on NTLM for multiple servers to manually configure several hundred or thousand firefox installations to accept those specific servers -- never mind if the list of servers changes. Too, it's even more unlikely that they'll be able to trust the users to properly maintain and configure those settings themselves. | |||
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=414746&cid=21999592 | |||
You've minimized the amount of testing you need to do for alternate browsers. Just make the applications work with IE and you've satisfied almost all of your users needs. Fewer browsers is actually a good thing for web developers--especially if they are targeting a limited niche of working in the real world of constrained budgets. The more browsers/configurations you need to develop and test for the more it will cost (or the less features you can include). | |||
From the article : | |||
The big downside is the difficulty of managing Firefox, especially in comparison to administering IE, according to the CIO. For example, he said that the IT department can patch IE via automated central updates. On the other hand, "we have to send an e-mail and have users manually download Firefox updates, which is not ideal," he said. | |||
Granted using an internal repository might be more rational in a large organisation (although that's presumably hackable) but from what I've seen Firefox just updates itself (In Windows and Mac OS at least IIRC). | |||
IME medium and upwards sized firms are used to a certain way of working and if anything doesn't fit the model, it has zero chance of being used. | |||
1. Is it secure? TICK | |||
2. Does it work in our environment? TICK | |||
3. Do they have guaranteed response times on support calls? CROSS | |||
OK, forget that one. Next? | |||
Mozilla thus far has neglected to develop tools to help IT departments deploy and manage Firefox, | |||
That, right there, is probably the number one reason more folks in the corporate world don't deploy FF. As far as I know, there is no easy way to push FF out to a desktop regardless if it's Windows, Mac or Linux. | |||
I currently deploy Firefox to our corporate workstations, however there are definitely things that Mozilla could do to make Firefox more corporate friendly. | |||
2. Management through group policy, or some other way to lock it down. IE does this very well, Mozilla's default install really doesn't offer anything, Frontmotion's build has some options, but it's not as good. | |||
3. Better support for restricted users and roaming profiles. We turn auto updates off, but our users still manage to try to run it occasionally. If they do Firefox downloads the update, fails to install due to lack of permissions, and then gives them an error until someone goes into the user's profile and deletes it. There can be some wackiness for people moving around between workstations as well. | |||
Yet, the corporate adoption problem still remains. I am now a division manager over IT development and deployment for a 1,200-person department in a large County organization. Our official policy is "IE-Only." Do I run Firefox? Yes. Do I have staff which runs firefox? Yes. Are they officially allowed to run Firefox from the CIO? No. The problem is - Firefox doesn't come bundled with Windows XP/Vista and therefore isn't even on the minds of most non-IT folks in my organization. As it is, recent applications I've overseen are more Firefox-compliant, but still run "better" with IE or at least the IE-tab. | |||
Corporate users (well me, anyway) want a tool to make it easy to deploy and I haven't found anything all-inclusive. Sad to say that a lot of hosted business apps run as active X controls or other BS that needs IE. What I need is a way to deploy firefox with specific settings, deploy ie tab with it, then have a list of sites that are always used for ietab. I need to configure this through group policy at least. I could have firefox on 500 machines tomorrow if I had this and I knew it worked perfectly. It should also be easy to deploy upgrades. | |||
I have been tinkering with this myself but.. busybusy and I haven't made much progress. | |||
== Deploying Firefox - from original article == | == Deploying Firefox - from original article == | ||