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Firefox 1.1 Scrapped
An Anonymous Reader writes: "The Firefox team has decided to scrap the planned 1.1 release (already in Alpha 2) and instead release the final version as 1.5 due to the significant number of bug fixes and changes. The 1.5 feature complete beta is expected next month." From the article: "We are planning for a Firefox 2.0 and 3.0, but will divide the planned work over (at this point) three major Milestones, 1.5 (September 2005), 2.0 (unscheduled) and 3.0 (unscheduled). All major development work will be done on the Mozilla trunk, and these releases will coincide with Gecko version revs."
There isnt any logic behind version numbers, that's why they're making news out of stuff like this.
As far as i'm concerned, I don't really care about what version number my browser is, as long as it's the latest, and it doesn't start with IE.
Does slashdot suddenly have something against Mozilla / Firefox? This reminds me of the "Mozilla suite discontinued" and the "Thunderbird (some version) canceled" stories. These could EASILY be re-worded to put a more positive spin on it.
How about: Firefox leaps ahead to 1.5!
Going on to describe: The vast number of improvements to Firefox has warranted a larger version increase, skipping over 1.1 the next release will be 1.5...
Similarly the previous stories could have been "Mozilla.org focuses exclusively on Firefox" and "Thunderbird flies ahead to version (number)".
Of course it didn't help the previous two were copied out of context from Mozillazine articles. Hmm... I don't see anything about this at all on Mozillazine yet.
Anyway Slashdot should be trying to help Mozilla.org and Firefox, not trying to sensationalize every change.
Having worked in a corporate infrastrucuture for far too long, I have to sadly say, that the biggest enterprise drawback to the use of FireFox is the lack of a Admin kit, that would allow you to customize which extensions you push out with Firefox.
It would also be nice to have an MSI based installer for easy deployments via exisiting application deployment engines (AD, SMS, Zenworks, etc) and the ability to customize the broser via Group Policy.
I know all of these only apply to the Windows world, but I think these kind of things would help Firefox in the long run.
Well, no, it's not a better option. For those who don't need the feature, it makes the browser bloated.
What they need is to include these crucial extensions in the installer as optional packages. The firefox installer should come with a laundry-list of important extensions nicely bundled together and thoroughly documented so that a user can either a) just get the minimum or b) make it a point to grab the tools they need. It keeps the core browser light, but it means that people with specific (but common) wants/needs don't need to go hunting around the extension page.
Simple packs like "Usability", "Internet Explorer Familiarity", "Web Developer", "Power User", "Multinational", etc. that bundle together commonly used relevant extensions would go a long way.