Software licensing is broken
Comments(1) Recently I watched a video by Seth Godin that talked about how things are broken, which, as well as being really funny, made me realise that so many things are indeed broken. Take the firefox extension update process for example. I appreciate it letting me know extensions are available automatically, but when it finishes it leaves you on a window with a single button saying “continue”. Why? If that’s the only option, then why not simply “continue” without my input? If you’re expecting me to make a choice at that point then I need more buttons…
Anyhow, in case anyone was in any doubt that licensing of proprietary software is broken, then this is a great example of the sheer absurdity of it all. For those who don’t want to click on the link- once you license the software in one country, you can only use it in that language, whether you want to or not. Yep, definitely broken.
While I guess I agree in general, I’m not sure I agree on the case of FireFox extensions. You do get a chance to decide whether or not to upgrade extensions when it detectes that updates are available, the final screen (with ‘continue’) is surely just letting you know that this has been successful.
If you realise at the end that you’ve goofed, you can disable the extension – so maybe you are right, perhaps there should be the option to ‘manage extensions’ as well as the simple ‘continue’ button?