More Mozilla Roadmap Plan Changes and Chaos

Mozilla 0.9.2 Set for 25 June Release

Mike Angelo -- 22 June 2001 (c)

June brings minor, yet somewhat chaotic changes to the Mozilla development Roadmap and Milestone Plan. One Mozilla Organization document shows the Mozilla Milestone 0.9.2 release set for June 31 (sic), 2001. Yet another Mozilla Organization document shows Mozilla 0.9.2 release set for June 25, 2001. Please see Tables 1 and 2.

We asked head lizard wrangler, Mitchell Baker which one of these two Mozilla documents is controlling. She never answered that question. Nor did she ever answer our question asking for more information about the Mozilla 0.9.2 schedule.

That makes 25 June 2001 the scheduled Mozilla Milestone 0.9.2 release date.

Had these Mozilla document inaccuracies and inconsistencies been corrected in the mid-June document revisions, they could be considered as typos and carelessness. The continued and deliberate publishing of these Mozilla document inaccuracies and inconsistencies cannot be excused as typos or mere carelessness. (Please see the Webmaster's Note in Table 1.)

Although the Mozilla Organization's Mozilla Development Roadmap document shows that Mozilla 0.9.2 will be released on 25 June 2001, it is doubtful that Mozilla 0.9.2 will be released then -- unless the Mozilla developers intend to release a very buggy milestone.

At publication time, there are some 295 bugs targeted to Mozilla 0.9.2. Additionally there are some 998 bugs targeted to Milestone 0.9.3 and 1,541 bugs targeted to Mozilla 1.0. That's a total of 2,836 bugs targeted to these three releases. This total does not include all the additional bugs that are targeted to other Mozilla releases.

Please check the MozillaQuest Magazine front-page (mozillaquest.com) sidebar every now and then for bug count and Mozilla Milestone 0.9.2 progress updates.

In May, for the third time in as many months, the Lizard wranglers pushed back the anticipated Mozilla release date in their Mozilla tree management diagram. The May Mozilla tree management diagram shows Mozilla 1.0 release now set for early Q4 – 15 October 2001. Please see Figure 1 and Table 3, below. For more information about the May roadmap and development plan revisions, please see our article Mozilla Roadmap Plan Changed Again -- Mozilla 1.0 Set Back to Q4 2001.

Figure 1. Current Mozilla tree management diagram. (From mozilla development roadmap, The Mozilla Organization. Link in Resources section at end of this article.)

The previous Mozilla tree management diagram (April 2001) showed a late Q3 anticipated Mozilla 1.0 release. For more information about the April roadmap and development plan revisions, please see our article Mozilla 1.0 Pushed Back to Q3 2001.

In March, the Mozilla Organization folks added Milestone 0.8.1 in between the Milestone 0.8 release and the then upcoming Milestone 0.9 release. Milestone 0.8.1 replaced, and pushed-back, the Mozilla 0.9 release date in the Roadmap schedule. That in turn, pushed back the Mozilla 1.0 release date to May 2001 at the earliest.

Please see our article Mozilla 1.0 Release Pushed Back -- Milestone 0.8.1 Inserted into Development Roadmap Schedule for more information about the March revisions.

The Mozilla browser-suite is built on top of the cross-platform (XP) and open source Mozilla applications programming framework. It is the basic, prototype, Mozilla-based, browser-suite application upon which other browsers, such as Netscape 6 and Netscape 6.1 are built.

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

Stay Tuned.

Resources

Related Articles

Mozilla Milestone 0.9.1 Browser-Suite Released

Mozilla Roadmap Plan Changed Again -- Mozilla 1.0 Set Back to Q4 2001

More Mozilla Roadmap & Development Plan Changes: Mozilla 1.0 Pushed Back to Q3 2001

Mozilla 1.0 Release Pushed Back -- Milestone 0.8.1 Inserted into Development Roadmap Schedule

Lizard On The Move: Mozilla Milestone 0.8.1 Browser-Suite Released

The Lizard Marches On: Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite Released

Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite RPM Builds Released

Composer: The Netscape & Mozilla Graphical HTML Editor & Word Processor

Meet Bugzilla -- Mozilla's Secretary of Bug-Busting & Feature Requests Lizard

Netscape 6.1 PR 1 Browser-Suite Released

How To Download, Install, & Configure Netscape 6 -- Safely!

Mozilla Organization Revises Development Roadmap and Product Release Schedule

MozillaQuest the Series: Building Your Own Mozilla-Based Web Browser

Please do not forget to report bugs, problems, or suggestions for enhancements to Bugzilla.

For more information about the Mozilla Roadmap & Milestone Plan, please see:

Mozilla Development Roadmap

(Excerpted screen shot from Mozilla Milestone Plan, 12 June 2001 revision, The Mozilla Organization, at 04:15 EDT 22 June 2001 )

Webmaster's Note - 23 June 2001: Yesterday evening EDT and after publication of this article, the Mozilla Organization eliminated the inaccuracies and confusion in its Mozilla Milestone Plan page by eliminating the Mozilla Milestone 0.9.2 entry from the Milestone Plan table on that page. It also corrected the inaccuracies in the 0.9.1 entries. The Mozilla Organization also changed the name of that page to Old Mozilla Milestone Plan. And it added with emphasis the language: This page has been replaced by our roadmap and is kept here for historical purposes.

(Excerpted screen shot from Mozilla Development Roadmap, 11 June 2001 revision, The Mozilla Organization, at 04:15 EDT 22 June 2001,)

Copyright 2000, 2001 -- MozillaQuest -- Brodheadsville, Pa..USA -- All Rights Reserved