Mozilla Considering Going To 9 Weeks Release Shedule

[Night Wing]

Looked at Ghacks today and saw this little jewel of an article. Looks like Mozilla is considering going from a 6 to 9 week release schedule.

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/20/mozill ... -schedule/

[Moonchild]

What, you mean the massive loss of users has finally been linked to people getting totally fed up with everything breaking every month?

[Night Wing]

I would have loved to have been a "fly on the wall" to listen in on this Mozilla meeting to get the "Skinny" on what was the real reason for this change.

[Rohugh]

Maybe there was so many problems/doubts about Australis they wanted a way to delay it further?

[Ryrynz]

Too much shifting stuff around I guess, why not just set some reasonable timely goals for a version and just release it when it's done?
At the most if you're doing it right it would be done in a few months maybe less, that's good enough. But anyway, we're past that.

[Night Wing]

That article is basically a PR release. I don't think the article tells the "real story".

Mozilla does have problems and Australis might be some of the cause. Australis was supposed to make it's "grand entrance" in version 19. Then it was pushed back to version 23. Then it was pushed back again to version 25. Then it was pushed back again to version 27. Then it was pushed back again to version 30 or 31. To put in bluntly, Australis has been biting Mozilla in the rear end for a long time now.

Also, I hear through the grapevine and I don't know if it's really true, but the grapevine says quite a lot of Firefox developers have left Mozilla for "greener pastures". Maybe these developers didn't like the direction Mozilla is going. I don't like the direction Mozilla is going.

For me personally, I've never liked the 6 week rapid release schedule. It creates too many bugs that somehow never get fixed properly if at all. Also, I've always had to look at my add-ons to see if they're compatible with the newest version of Firefox. Pushing the release cycle to 9 weeks suits me fine. I would love it if there was a 12 weeks schedule.

[Sajadi]

9 Weeks.. That is the first Mozilla decision in a long time which earns a small thumb up.

[Night Wing]

9 Weeks.. That is the first Mozilla decision in a long time which earns a small thumb up.

Just remember, the article states Mozilla is only "considering" going to a 9 weeks release schedule. So the jury is still out on whether this decision comes to reality or gets shelved for "further study" by Mozilla.

[lyceus]

I wouldn't care if that were 6-9 months for get a decent update. I remember the old days that an update means UPDATE FOR REAL. Not the updates of today: 1 or 2 new features, lots of bugfixes and gazillions of new bugs.

[Sajadi]

Exactly. The faster you release something, the more rushed it is, the more unstable it is and it will make for sure more problems when used because testing time was way too less available. There is also the difference that Chrome/Chromium developers are able to maintain that interval, because their developer base has for sure the better technical knowledge and more manpower available to get along with such a rushjob.

In my opinion Mozilla fails in both of that important 2 categories to get along with Rapid Releases.

[dudewithit]

Also, I hear through the grapevine and I don't know if it's really true, but the grapevine says quite a lot of Firefox developers have left Mozilla for "greener pastures". Maybe these developers didn't like the direction Mozilla is going. I don't like the direction Mozilla is going.

nothing really grapevine-y in this . Just hang around in bugzilla, and you get to know who is leaving, and who has joined.
In recent past two devs have left :

1. Joe Drew : The imagelib guy. He worked on multithreaded image decoding. With him gone, the imagelib is seriously undermanned. The bug he left in between, Offmainthread animated gifs, is still left where he left it. Primarily, Seth Fowler works on imagelib now.

2. Justin Leber : Major contributor to core functions of the gecko engine. Also worked heavily on really low-level FFOS memory and process.

and this : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=922105

[Night Wing]

Reading the few comments in that link, looks like some of the natives are ready or planning to or have already left the Mozilla reservation.