Mozilla Hints That Firefox's 6-Week Release Cycle May Change

Firefox director of engineering Jonathan Nightingale posted a few thoughts that appear to be a preparation for "some adjustments" that are seemingly published to avoid Mozilla being accused of delaying Firefox releases. There is no clear information if and when such "delays" may happen, but Nightingale noted that 40 days or 44 days for release cycles make just as much sense as 42 days.

Of course, it was Mozilla that published release dates for Firefox more than one year in advance, following exactly the 6-week release cycle process for the Nightly, Aurora, Beta and Stable release versions. While this strategy almost certainly will cause media reports of a delayed release date should Mozilla miss one of its own given dates, it is unlikely that anyone would care if Firefox would be released two days earlier or later. Google, for example, has transitioned to a 6-week release cycle in fall of 2010, but never published release dates in advance. Nightingale now says that Firefox will be released when it is ready, which is much more reasonable than sticking painstakingly close to the 42-day release goal.

It may be more important to note that Mozilla recently announced that Firefox 3.6 will finally reach the end of support on April 24, with Firefox 3.6.28 being the last release for the browser. The minimum requirement for running a supported version of Firefox will be Windows XP SP2 following the discontinuance of Firefox 3.6.

  • captaincharisma
    with windows XP SP2 being the minimum version of windows now supported i wonder what other web browsers windows 2000 users are going to have to choose from now?
    Reply
  • Northwestern
    captaincharismawith windows XP SP2 being the minimum version of windows now supported i wonder what other web browsers windows 2000 users are going to have to choose from now?I never truly relied on Firefox because Opera is far superior on Win2000.

    Once Opera loses support, I'll probably go back to Netscape.
    Reply
  • JasonAkkerman
    Of course it's going to change. Their V number is now bigger then IE's V number.
    Reply
  • synd
    captaincharismawith windows XP SP2 being the minimum version of windows now supported i wonder what other web browsers windows 2000 users are going to have to choose from now?Dude, nowadays the people that use Win XP are reducing faster, what to talk about win 2k? There's no reason to support a very old and slow OS.
    Reply
  • cliffro
    At my workplace, the bosses(everyone above the supervisors) use Win7 on "their" computers(only they use it)but out on the floor in the Distribution Center the supervisors use a locked down version of XP Pro. And they spend most of their time in some program that looks like DOS for inventory control.
    Reply
  • zhihao50
    In a similar but non related news, Google just updated Chrome to V18 :p
    Reply
  • cookoy
    To paraphrase Gandalf, the wizard from Lord of the Rings, Firefox releases are never late. They come out at precisely the time the developers say we are ready.
    Reply
  • freggo
    syndDude, nowadays the people that use Win XP are reducing faster, what to talk about win 2k? There's no reason to support a very old and slow OS.
    Actually there is !
    Home users and Gamers can affor to get the latest OS, businesses can not as the cost of switching -especially in these times- is way to high.
    Any no, it is not about a few bucks for the software, but a LOT of money for re-training of employees !

    Win2k, like it or not, can do pretty much anything you need in a 9-5 office environment and it is pretty stable by now. And no IT department head cares if you can or can not play 'Crysis' on it :-)



    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    syndDude, nowadays the people that use Win XP are reducing faster, what to talk about win 2k? There's no reason to support a very old and slow OS.
    Tell that to schools, hospitals, and other businesses who are still rocking with Windows 2000 or even older OSes.
    Reply
  • in_the_loop
    Let's do some version math.
    Firefox 1.0 was officially launched in November 9, 2004.
    That was about 7 years and 5 months ago.
    Let's fast forward 7 years and 5 months from now.
    That is roughly 52*7 or 364 weeks (rounded to 52 weeks per year, no scotyears and so on, the release cycle won't be strict anyway). 364 weeks/6= 60,66667, lets say 60 to make it easy.

    This means that 60 newer versions of Firefox will be released in the next 7 years and 5 months.
    The same time it took them to get from Firefox 1 to Firefox 11 (and that is including the rapid upgrades starting with FF 5).
    Big numbers obviously counts....
    Reply