Indeed, making good on the promise back in February that it was planning to of its browser releases, Mozilla has now made plain that it plans to ship the final release of on June 21, likely followed by Firefox 6 in mid-August.
Beginning with Firefox 6, in fact, Mozilla will adopt a standard, overlapping 18-week schedule by which each new version spends six weeks in each of three different stages: the "central" or "nightly" phase, which is "just like the current repository," Mozilla notes; the "aurora" phase, where work done previously is stabilized; and then the beta phase, in which any remaining issues are fixed. A draft is posted on Mozilla's site.
'Releases Are Not Delayed'
Whereas previous Firefox releases have taken many months to develop, Mozilla's new timetable will impose a much stricter schedule that's akin to the one Google follows for its own Chrome competitor.
"Each release happens regardless of whether a given feature is ready, and releases are not delayed to wait for a feature to stabilize," Mozilla in a separate draft document. "The goal of the process is to provide regular improvements to users without disrupting longer term work."
According to Mozilla's schedule, Firefox 5 will enter the aurora phase on Tuesday. At the same time, Firefox 6 will enter its central, or nightly, phase.
(More) Instant Gratification
Firefox 4 has propelled Mozilla's browser to the forefront of the pack with including greatly boosted , a widely touted "Do Not Track" mechanism, a "tabs on top" layout and more.
That version of the browser--which blew away expectations with some 7 million downloads in its first 24 hours--may have taken a relatively long time to bake, but it's clear future versions won't.
I love Firefox 4, but I can't wait to try out the , which promises to feature a more responsive interface, an updated search bar, site-specific tabs and . It's exciting to see that Mozilla is committing to make the browser even better sooner--and more often.
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