It seems that this blog got mentioned in a Paul Festa article. I love that lead, "Barring any last-minute surprises, the Firefox Web browser on Tuesday will turn 1.0." (um, no. it's 1.0PR).
Posted by asa at September 13, 2004 05:10 PMSo what's the difference between 1.0PR and 1.0? (Please don't say, "It's a preview release," because then I'll want to know the difference between a preview release and a release release.)
Posted by: pjm on September 13, 2004 06:29 PMpjm, a Preview is something you show people before you show them the final or full product. It's a preliminary sample that advertises a forthcoming release.
--Asa
Posted by: Asa Dotzler on September 14, 2004 12:12 AM"It's a preliminary sample that advertises a forthcoming release"
Yes, but so was 0.9 :) Couldn't one say that 1.0PR is rather what in mozilla.org's opinion is the final, rocksolid, featurecomplete 1.0, but, since they know they are going to be proven wrong (with regards to the rocksolidness and would hate to scramble to put out 1.0.1, 1.0.2,... in the weeks following the release), they released as a "Preview" instead?
Posted by: Lauritz Jensen on September 14, 2004 12:48 AMBut here you see why you probably better could have called it straight 0.10. You don't need the 'almost-1.0' publicity to enlarge your testing base I think, and expanding your userbase is best done at the 1.0 release I think.
Anyway, consider it again for 2.0 :)
"Couldn't one say that 1.0PR is rather what in mozilla.org's opinion is the final, rocksolid, featurecomplete 1.0, but, since they know they are going to be proven wrong (with regards to the rocksolidness and would hate to scramble to put out 1.0.1, 1.0.2,... in the weeks following the release), they released as a "Preview" instead?"
No -- the developers KNOW this release isn't "done" yet. It's not their opinion this is the rock solid 1.0. What you're talking about will show up in the last few Release Candidates that are still weeks ahead. Then we're talking about developers releasing builds they think might be final.
"But here you see why you probably better could have called it straight 0.10."
I've seen the confusion from a "0.10" (people went -- "whaa, but that's like... 0.1!!"). Yeah, go ahead and explain version numbers != decimal numbers, and you'll still get dozens more pointing out the same thing, not listening to you.
So I think a "Preview Release" is better for that reason. I might not have thought this if this would've been the 0.9.