Rated 4 out of 5 stars

by David Jao on Dec. 5, 2012 ·

This extension used to work great for its intended purpose. Actually, it still does. But lately the extension has started displaying announcements in Thunderbird every time the extension is updated. There is, as far as I can tell, no way to turn off the display of these announcements.

Making matters worse, the announcements invariably include a plea for monetary donations. I fully understand that the software is being provided for free and the author has every right to ask for donations. On the other hand, I have every right to stop using the software, for any reason or even for no reason at all. I have in fact stopped using this extension, because the unpleasant forced advertising outweighs the benefits of the software.

The author should seriously consider removing the forcible display of announcements with each new version update. I cannot see how this behavior is user-friendly in any sense of the term.

EDIT 2012-12-06: Thanks for the response. Let me clarify that the solicitations are a minor issue next to the announcement spam. They are just the straw that broke the camel's back. Certainly reducing the frequency with which release notes are displayed would be an improvement. I have improved my rating based on your doing that.

I do not think that my position is unreasonable. I have upwards of 4000 software packages installed on my computer. On average maybe 5 of them update in a given day. I certainly do not feel like I need to see all the release notes for all my installed software every time they update. All I need is the ability to access the release notes when desired. You say that other extensions do this too, to which I have two replies. First is that the other extensions are wrong as well, and the second is that they often include a way to disable the display of release notes (for example NoScript has a checkbox for this in its preferences pane).

I am not writing this review to save myself any effort. Obviously I could have just uninstalled your extension and continued on with my life. I want to help you improve your software, which is in all other respects excellent, and this is why I take the time to review. I don't think it is in any way unreasonable to allow users to choose whether to see release notes every time or not.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (4.1.5). 

by Jonathan Kamens (Developer) on Dec. 6, 2012 ·

The release notes display with every release because every release contains new functionality that users need to be informed about. Most of the good Firefox and Thunderbird plugins I use display release notes with each release.

However, based on your feedback, it occurs to me that it would be a good idea for me to distinguish between functionality releases which require release notes to be displayed and minor releases which do not. For example, the release that just came out, with a new translation and an updated date-parsing library, probably did not need release notes to be displayed. I have implemented this for the next release of the add-on.

Every add-on that I use that displays release notes has a request for donations on the release notes page. Whether you donate or not is completely up to you; the add-on is free and will remain that way.

The add-on does everything _I_ need it to do and has for quite a while. If I were only maintaining it for myself, then I'd stop spending any time on it and get on with my life. I continue to develop it to benefit its >26,000 users, and I don't see anything wrong with asking those users to send a few bucks my way if they are so inclined. Frankly, I think the offense you take at this is disproportionate and unreasonable.

UPDATE: It was not your comments about the frequency of displaying the release notes that I found unreasonable; it was your comments criticizing the fact that I ask for donations.