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What is Mozilla trying to do?
cyberdiva:
DaddyDave, I love your toilet theory! :up:
I haven't yet moved to FF5, primarily because of the add-on issue. But Mozilla is claiming that FF5 corrects security problems in FF4, so perhaps I should upgrade? I guess I'll wait a bit longer.
nudone:
we really need more toilet analogy reviews, daddydave. sums them up perfectly.
Ath:
I moved to FF5, despite not-yet-ported plugins, because there's a config setting to ignore the version 5 check:
* type "about:config" in the address bar
* Right-Click/New/Boolean
* Enter name: "extensions.checkCompatibility.5.0"
* Select "False"
* Restart Firefox(All values to be typed without the quotes shown)
Now the Addons page in FF gives a warning that this 'compatibility setting is enabled, and would you like to disable that' (ignore ofcourse ;)) but all FF4 plugins that didn't work at first now work, except for the Skype plugin I got (but forgot to disable) when installing Skype.
The equivalent setting seems to exist for FF4, and is still usable in FF5
TheQwerty:
If I preferred to use a browser that changed the major version number every quarter just like Chrome does, I would use Chrome. Wouldn't I?
Why is Mozilla adopting this weird scheme of development, do you have any idea?-eleman (June 23, 2011, 06:31 AM)
--- End quote ---
Well your first statement answers the second, does it not? :P
The competition is moving to a schedule-driven release cycle to ensure the user is continually getting new features (among other reasons), could Mozilla afford to continue their feature-driven cycle without appearing out-dated, slow, or losing users? After all, Firefox 4 was in beta for almost a full year before it was released and in the time they went from 3.6 to 4.0, Google took Chrome from 4 to 10.
To be honest, I think Mozilla only made this change because they were able to see/understand the merit in Google's decision to change Chrome's release cycle. I don't believe they would have arrived at this on their own (at least not at present).
If you really want to delve into their decisions here's two good reads, also pretty good considerations for general project management:
http://mozilla.github.com/process-releases/draft/development_overview/
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dg63dpc6_4d7vkk6ch
The first also mentions that the time between 4 and 5 was meant to be short and transition them into their new cycle, so 5 to 6 might not feel as quick.
My take away is that it boils down to establishing a cadence and rhythm, sticking to it so the teams don't lose momentum, and freeing everyone involved from the stress of meeting/missing/setting a release date.
TheQwerty:
What am I doing making duplicates? :-[
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