Mozilla 0.9.5 Branched -- Buggier Than Ever

Mike Angelo -- 8 October 2001 (c)

Webmaster´s Note: Mozilla Milestone 0.9.5 was released October 12, 2001. Please see our story, Mozilla Milestone 0.9.5 Browser-Suite Released, for download links and the details.

With more than 160 bugs still targeted to it, the upcoming Mozilla Milestone 0.9.5 edition was branched, sort of, Friday, 5 October 2001 from the main development-tree trunk. Moreover, at the time of its Friday branching Mozilla Milestone 0.9.5 had some 3,600 bugs by conservative estimates and some 15,760 bugs by less conservative estimates.

The comparable less conservative estimate was around 15,000 bugs a month ago. Moreover, the more conservative bug count is up about 600 bugs since Mozilla 0.9.4 was branched on 5 September 2001.

The Mozilla developers opened a 0.9.5 branch in the Mozilla Tinderbox Friday. However, just before publication time today there still was no 0.9.5 branch directory on the Mozilla FTP site. That suggests that the 0.9.5 branch was being fixed on the trunk before it was placed in a 0.9.5 branch directory.

That seems somewhat flaky. If a future milestone still is on the trunk, then it has not been branched (completely). One could argue that a branch is not branched until it is branched. In any event, there now is a Mozilla 0.9.5 branch directory.

Mozilla 0.9.5 is scheduled to be released Friday 12 October 2001.

If the Mozilla developers work to fix all, or even close to all, the bugs targeted to Mozilla 0.9.5 before releasing it, it could take some time. However, if the Mozilla developers follow past practices, they will fix only some of these bugs. Then they will merely sweep the rest under the carpet, so to speak, by re-assigning the remaining bugs to other targets in order to try to maintain schedule. Please see our 0.9.4 branching article, Mozilla 0.9.4 Branched -- Behind Schedule & Buggier Than Ever, for more detail and information about the Mozilla bugs.

Mozilla pre-1.0 Milestone and daily development builds normally are available for the BSD, Linux, Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, OS/2, Sun, and several UNIX platforms. Source code usually is available if you want to custom compile your own Mozilla builds.

Incidentally, please check the MozillaQuest Magazine front-page (mozillaquest.com) sidebar every now and then for bug count updates and for Mozilla Milestone 0.9.5 progress updates.

Please see our article, Mozilla Roadmap - Mozilla 1.0 Set Back to 2002 - Mozilla 0.9.4 Set for 7 September, for more information about the August 2001 Mozilla Development Roadmap and development schedule revisions. There is lots of bug information in that article too.

If you like, you can grab a copy of the latest Mozilla 0.9.5 branch build from the Mozilla Organization FTP server. Don't forget to report any bugs you find to Bugzilla.

Or, if you never have tried the Mozilla browser suite, you can download and try Mozilla 0.9.4. Please see our article, Mozilla Milestone 0.9.4 Browser-Suite Released, for more information about 0.9.4 and for download links.

Stay Tuned.