On 24/05/12 18:29, Anant Narayanan wrote: > I disagree that it's the same thing. Well, *technically* it might be the > same, but in practice that's not how users (or developers) perceive it.
You have to show also that the differences in perception are relevant to the argument. > Clicking an install button is just not the same as clicking a hyperlink. > Context is very important for the former. The context of _where the app comes from_ is important for the former. The context of _where the button is_ is not important. >>> Would you be okay with allowing any site on the internet to distribute >>> Firefox? I certainly wouldn't be. BTW, I would - and thousands of sites do. Why would you stop them? > We are actively encouraging developers to not think of apps simply as > websites, as you note, that leads to a poor user experience. Not necessarily. Sometimes _presenting_ websites as apps or apps as websites can lead to a poor user experience, but not necessarily, and the level of experience isn't just about what the app/site provides in terms of UI - see my response to Bill. But this is a different difference to the "linkability" difference. Let's talk about one difference at a time. > It's all the web under the hood, the tools and technologies are > identical, but the design and interface of an app, as well as the > general user experience of finding and acquiring an app is *vastly* > different from browsing the internet and visiting web pages. I don't > think we should be pretending that they're the same, because they're not. That's a straw man; no one (at least, not me) is saying that we should pretend they are the same in all respects. The question is whether they should be the same in respect of "anyone on the web can link you to another website" and "anyone on the web can link you to an app". I'd say universal linkability is one of the key things which has made the web what it is today. It's very much in line with Mozilla's "no gatekeepers on the Internet" thing. Why would we want to go out of our way to break that feature for apps? Gerv _______________________________________________ dev-webapps mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps
