Well I care. When I see version 18, then a few weeks later, version 19, then version 20, my expectations with large version number changes is that there are huge changes to the application, when the fact is, these are just point releases and should be communicated as such.
You are not answering the question so try again: why use the major.minor system? What use is it to the average user and what use is it to the average developer? Or in other words: what are you trying to accomplish with the major.minor system?
Also: why the egoism? There are many more people on this globe than just you. Some will use Firefox, some will use something else. Most of them are ordinary users who do not care about version numbering at all. They want the browser to do why they have it installed for: browse the web. You don't need version numbers for that. It doesn't matter what you or I think, it matters what most of the users will think but most of all what the company itself thinks. Usually it ends up with doing what most of the userbase wants or what the company wants.
So one day we will see Firefox version 189? When it reality, the last 175 releases were just bug fixes and small changes. It does not need to go four levels deep, but the a point release against a version for bug fixes is rather normal, universally understood and just makes sense.
So? What's the problem exactly? In some releases there will be big changes, in some there won't but that's not the point of it all. Software has to be of high quality not of a high amount of features, new stuff, etc. We've seen what happens when you focus on putting heaps of big changes into software. The quality (and thus things like speed, stability, security, etc.) goes down quickly as well as the chance of not being able to deliver on time. Also, the major.minor release thing is just one of the many systems that are universally understood, used and make sense up to a certain point.
There is no difference between 10.8.2, Mountain Lion, 189, a.b, xxii, 23789dfsbjkadsvf8812, etc. They are all valid, logic ways of doing it that are universally understood, are being universally used and do make sense. It's all in the way how you define it. Some simply use the version numbering from their versioning system (git, mercurial, subversion) because that's part of its job. You use it for versioning so why not use the version numbering? The reason why most don't lies in the way the vcs do version numbering. They are hashes which is hard to remember and look up so most use a simplified version numbering.
It is just stupid in my opinion to call every bug fix or patch release a new version when it isn't.
I find the above stupid as it shows a complete lack of knowledge about developing software and contracts. You agree upon a certain set of fixes, patches, features and/or a time frame. Whatever you deliver can be called a new version because people agreed upon calling it such. That's what it is about eventually: you think of how the version numbering should go for that particular product. It is not something that is universally for every product out there from every company, every programmer. In general the user doesn't care at all.
Just stop claiming that Mozilla is doing it wrong. There is no wrong or right when it comes to version numbering. There are many roads that will lead to Rome and there are many ways of version numbering. The development process Mozilla is using isn't new (take a look at "agile") and neither is their version numbering (MS Word and many other wordprocessors use it for their own version numbering system as well as just about any vcs). Is the criticism correct? Hell no, it's hypocrite as it can get.
I think the "complaint" is that, until Chrome became popular, a Firefox update that was a .0 release was a major update, with worthwhile features, (I remember the big countdown to version 4) not just a maintenance update like lately.
Which let to lots of people complaining about it being so late. After it was released there was another never ending stream of complaints about the software not being stable, fast, etc. People went to Chrome because Fx4 was bloated. It was bloated because people expected lots of changes and features because they thought that quantity is the same as quality. They learned a very wise lesson that day: quantity usually means a decrease in quality.
Anyway, both Chrome and Firefox update in the background so users hardly notice they are on a new version. This is a good setup to get rid of version numbers entirely and move on to rolling releases (there are many software that are already on rolling releases).
Something appropriate for rapid release cycles would be for the software to bear version numbers based on the year, so 2013.0, 2013.1, 2013.2, etc.
There are some Linux distro's that do this. I like how Ubuntu does it by using the year.month type (yyyy.mm) because you can immediately tell how old a piece of software is. That's one of the main things you want to use the version number for (how old is it, is it the latest?). Other than that...you simply check with the manufacturer and you get your answer (or you Google the problem and the version number which gives you plenty of results).
