Mozilla Aims To Release Four Firefox Versions In 2011

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is planning to release four new versions of its open source browser by the end of this year. That means Firefox 4, Firefox 5, Firefox 6, and Firefox 7 are all slated to ship in 2011. Mozilla was originally planning on having Firefox 4 out by the end of last year, but it had to delay the release. The last release was Beta 10 but there are still probably two more betas, at least one release candidate, and of course a final build. It's clear the company no longer thinks this model is a good one, and wants to accelerate its release cycle, much like Google did with Chrome." More detailed information on the accelerated development cycle and the major features intended for each new version are available on Mozilla's Firefox 2011 Roadmap.

Comments

Magic version numbers

[bluefoxlucid]

Like accelerating the version number major releases suddenly makes the release cycle better. More bugs?

Re:Magic version numbers

[Americano]

Exactly. The change to calling each one of them "major" versions appears to be simply cosmetic - who cares what the number is, people will use the latest stable version, whichever that happens to be; if there is no stable version, they'll simply move to using Chrome or Safari.

Basically, all Mozilla has done is said, "Everything we would have released in a big chunk next November will be delivered in 4 smaller chunks, one each quarter."

In theory, the releases will be more tightly focused, with shorter durations, and fewer features to implement translating to more thorough bug testing and bug fixing. This is a good thing.

In practice, as you noted... no guarantees. I expect at least 2 of them will be significantly late and / or significantly reduced in scope from their current roadmap.

Versions

[amicusNYCL]

It's clear the company no longer thinks this model is a good one, and wants to accelerate its release cycle

It sort of sounds more like they want to remove minor version numbers, and make every update a new major version.

That's just dumb

[metrix007]

Stick with the point versions, and focus on getting 4.5 out by mid 2012.

Releasing 4 major versions in one year is immature, and Mozilla should no better. What motivation do they have other than competing with the other browsers that have higher version numbers? Stupid.

Hariyfeet, if you read this, I want to remind you once again that Firefox deciding not to make use of Windows Integrity Controls is not equivalent to running the browser as a root process. Sigh.

Re:This just in:

[Americano]

A version number increment is only as important as you want it to be. The difference between "3.6" and "4.0" is entirely subjective, as is the difference between "4.0" and "5.0".

By convention, a "major" release increment signals significant changes, but what constitutes "significant"? Is expanding Windows support to 32-bit AND 64-bit versions "major"? Could be. Is implementing a new feature to support "identity," as the roadmap suggests? Could be. So is adding Windows 64-bit support worthy of a major revision number? If it is, do they have to increment again when they release "identity" support? Is one "more major" than the other?

The answer is: who cares, really? The only thing that users really need to worry about:
1) What version am I using presently?
2) What is the latest stable version?
3) What's changed between #1 and #2, and is it worth upgrading?

Whether #1 and #2 are "3.6" and "3.9", respectively, or "4.0" and "7.0", it really doesn't matter. It's the delta, #3, that really matters - what's been added, removed, updated, fixed, and broken between the two?