Mozilla Proposes Firefox ESR Versions for Businesses

By Douglas Perry
published

Mozilla has posted its first idea how make Firefox much more acceptable for businesses as a rapid release cycle release.

Instead of supporting a particular browser version for just six weeks, an "extended support release" (ESR) would be supported for a total of seven Firefox release cycles, or 42 weeks.

Mozilla would still be updating an ESR version every time a new Firefox is released, but would only apply security patches, according to a proposal. If Mozilla starts this idea with Firefox 8, then ESR versions would be called 8.0 ESR, 8.0.1 ESR, 8,0.2 ESR until 8.0.6 ESR with release dates that coincide with Firefox 9 - 14. Mozilla also said that business that choose the ESR version will have 12 weeks to qualify a new Firefox ESR version once it becomes available. The current proposal suggests that Firefox 8 ESR will be introduced on January 1, 2012 while the will not have to switch to the successor Firefox 13.0.1 ESR (including two qualifying cycles) until August 28, 2012.

Mozilla is currently asking for feedback on the proposal, but said that it is planning on launching the ESR versions with Firefox 8 or 9.

Douglas Perry
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • house70
    This is where they lost it. They need to keep it simple; instead, they choose to complicate things. How about they focus on extensions compatibility? I have at least a few that are not compatible with current version(s). And software devs have a hard time keeping up with the updates, if it breaks their product compatibility.
    Reply
  • cookies
    Alright. 1/1/2012 to 8/28/2012 is 42 weeks. Years just keep getting longer.
    Reply
  • fractalsphere
    If they had corporate support, like an MSI, or hooks to plug in functionality to Windows Group Policy it would make it a much more viable corporate alternate browser.
    Reply
  • phatboe
    How about Mozilla go back to the old system. No one had a problem with that and everything worked beautifully.
    Reply
  • dickcheney
    Fire Asa Dotzler now!
    Reply
  • techtate
    Mozilla is being ridiculous with their rapid release idea. As an IT manager their recent choices have made it impossible for me to support current Firefox versions as our standard browser. I'm glad they are at least coming part way with this move, but still, only supporting something for 42 weeks is... stupid, unless there is complete backwards compatibility with plugins.
    Reply
  • alidan
    house70This is where they lost it. They need to keep it simple; instead, they choose to complicate things. How about they focus on extensions compatibility? I have at least a few that are not compatible with current version(s). And software devs have a hard time keeping up with the updates, if it breaks their product compatibility.
    i am on 8 right now, there were only a few extensions that didn't work, and thats because support was dropped around ff3.5

    the only extension that flat out failed to work was down them all, and a alpha version of tab mix + that was a pre release for 3.5, otherwise everything else if just fine.

    basically if an extension works in 4, it works in 8. you just have to turn version compatibility off.

    phatboeHow about Mozilla go back to the old system. No one had a problem with that and everything worked beautifully.
    take a look at version 6-8 and tell me the old model was working fine? tell me in a post chrome internent, that casual consumers don't want the best right now?

    techtateMozilla is being ridiculous with their rapid release idea. As an IT manager their recent choices have made it impossible for me to support current Firefox versions as our standard browser. I'm glad they are at least coming part way with this move, but still, only supporting something for 42 weeks is... stupid, unless there is complete backwards compatibility with plugins.

    what plugins do you use? in a business sense, that don't work?
    Reply
  • daft
    otacon72FF still hasn't figured out how to stop it from crashing with Flash. Also the fact it sucks up almost a gig of RAM with only a few tabs open...they can keep it.you are either a troll, or have something wrong with your FF settings. as i speak, i have a youtube video going (1080p of course) along with about 8 other tabs including this one. and im only getting about 275MB usage out of it.
    Reply
  • BWMerlin
    fractalsphereIf they had corporate support, like an MSI, or hooks to plug in functionality to Windows Group Policy it would make it a much more viable corporate alternate browser.
    This is all they need, give us MSIs and GPO and we can deploy firefox how we want, when we want. There has been a ticket about creating MSIs for firefox and thunderbird open for years and still nothing instead we get a crappy 6 week release cycle with minimal new features and still no major that would actually help corporate users use firefox in business.
    Reply
  • iamtheking123
    Mozilla can release as fast as they want with whatever features they want:

    JUST DON'T BREAK MY ADDONS.

    Take all the components and code that tie in with addons and don't touch it. All the "improvements" can be 4.X and anything that WILL break addons can be 5.0.
    Reply