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Skriven 2005-03-12 19:24:02 av madodel@ptdprolog.net
Ärende: [VOICENWS] SW: The Future of Mozilla 1.8 Suit
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19:32:13 

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(authenticated:madodel@[24.152.250.36])
From: "Sander Nyman"<sanderDESPAM@DESPAMiccas.com> 



The Mozilla Foundation announced some time ago, that the Mozilla Suite
would transition to the Firefox browser, and Thunderbird.  For those that
preferred the Suite (myself included), there was reason to hope, as work
continued past version 1.7x, to version 1.8x, and indeed, the Mozilla
Suite remained on the roadmap.  

Here is an official announcement (line up tequila shooters, and brace
yourself) on the future of the Mozilla Suite:

Mozilla Application Suite - Transition Plan

March 10, 2005

In 2003 we announced our intention to shift development focus from the
integrated Mozilla Application Suite (commonly referred to as "Seamonkey")
to a new generation of applications -- the Mozilla Firefox browser and the
Mozilla Thunderbird mail and news client. That shift in focus occurred
almost immediately, as the Mozilla Foundation was formed and we hired the
lead developers for Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. At that time
we also stated our intention to maintain a long-lived, stable 1.7.x
version of Seamonkey. We noted that a number of commercial distributors
ship Seamonkey and will need the means to maintain it for their customers.
There is also a user and developer base that is fond of Seamonkey and
would like to maintain it. We have continued with this maintenance plan as
well, with a 1.7.6 release scheduled for the next few weeks. 

In the last few months we have also been releasing a series of 1.8 alpha
and beta releases. The goal of these releases has been to test the changes
to the back-end aspects of our codebase. Most users are familiar only with
the "front-end" of our code -- the actual end user applications that
provide browsing and mail functionality. But underneath this layer of code
is a deep, complex layer of infrastructure that makes things work behind
the scenes. There's no reason for end users to be aware of this
foundation, just as most of us aren't aware of the details of the
foundation of the skyscrapers we visit. But it is critical, and continued
development and testing of this layer is vital to keeping our applications
healthy. 

The ongoing alpha and beta releases of Seamonkey 1.8 have suggested that
the Mozilla Foundation itself will be creating a 1.8 final release. This
is not our plan. The 1.8 releases have been for testing our backend. We
intend that the 1.7.x line of releases will be the last long-lived,
maintained versions released by the Mozilla Foundation. There is no doubt
that the series of 1.8 alpha and beta releases have caused some confusion
about whether there would be a 1.8 product released by the Mozilla
Foundation. In addition, a set of people have done a non-trivial amount of
work on 1.8 features, thinking this would be part of an official Mozilla
Foundation release. This has been a major error on our part. These
contributors have reason to be unhappy with us. We can only apologize, at
the same time recognizing that apologies only go so far and can't fix the
error. 

Our plan for the Seamonkey suite is as follows:

1. The 1.7.x line will be the last set of Seamonkey products released and
maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation will provide
infrastructure for those interested in working on the 1.7.x releases,
which we expect will include a number of vendors who provide these
products to their customers. We've committed to support the 1.7 branch
some time ago. If we ship 1.8 we'll need to support that as well, and we
just can't manage supporting that many versions as well as Firefox and
Thunderbird releases.

2. The Mozilla Foundation will provide infrastructure support (CVS access,
bugzilla, development tools, etc) for community members who wish to
continue to develop Seamonkey. This community group may wish to do formal
releases of Seamonkey, much as the Sunbird and Minimo developers do. We
support this. We probably won't use the same naming conventions, as we
need to be clear that this is not a Mozilla Foundation product release.

3. Boris Zbarsky has posted an open letter to the Mozilla Foundation
signed by a set of interested parties, laying out a community transition
plan. We support this plan and will work with interested parties to figure
out strategy. There will undoubtedly be some implementation details to be
worked out (e.g., can we actually use Seamonkey as a formal trademark, how
do we work the tinderbox machines, etc.).

The dedication to the product, the initiative of the developers and the
proposal of the transition plan as a solution are all hallmarks of the
Mozilla community. We support this effort completely.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Sander Nyman"<sanderDESPAM@DESPAMiccas.com>
-----------------------------------------------------------
We are not retreating.  We are advancing in another Direction. 
- General Douglas MacArthur


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