the plan for the 1.1 releases

I didn't get any developer feedback at npm.seamonkey, so I'm posting here in case I've got Mozilla developer readers that don't follow the newsgroups closely.

We're coming into the final stages of shipping the Firefox, Thunderbird, and XULRunner releases. Each of these releases will be following roughly the same schedule which is outlined in general terms below.

For each of our products, we've got three major cycles to complete. The first cycle, scheduled to wrap in the next week to ten days, is all about getting key developer-centric features stabilized and shipped. This release is based on Gecko 1.8b2 and is targeting extension developers, app developers, and web developers. It is intended as a early heads-up to the developer world about the last year of Gecko changes that make the current trunk builds quite different from what we shipped just five months ago as Firefox 1.0. It will also serve as a preview of the latest Toolkit and our first XULRunner preview. If there are changes that need to be a part this developer-focused release, changes that will impact extension, web, or application developers, we need those landed ASAP. This applies for all three products, Firefox, Thunderbird, and XULRunner. In order to avoid a lot of end users downloading this browser release, it will be publicized as the "Deer Park Developer Preview" rather than "Firefox" (Deer Park is the project codename for Firefox 1.1) and we're not going to be shouting loudly about end user features. The Thunderbird and XULRunner releases from this cycle will also be somewhat low-key and targeting the developer and testing community rather than the end user.

The second cycle is scheduled to conclude about five weeks after the Deer Park Developer Preview. That release will be based on Gecko 1.8b3 and should be feature complete for Firefox 1.1, Thunderbird 1.1, and XULRunner. We will be freezing localizable strings with this release (managed by exception) so that our L10n community can wrap up the bulk of their work before we branch. Also, for both Firefox and Thunderbird, it is imperative that we have the infrastructure to ship localized builds from our systems by the time we get to this release. Additional focus for this release will be to get any remaining Gecko feature work landed so that what we deliver to our testers and developer communities here will as closely as possible match what we ship in the final releases. I believe that we'll be advertising this browser release as the "Firefox General Preview", targeting all interested testers - from developers to end users. Thunderbird will have a more public preview here as well, and if we're ready for it, so will XULRunner.

The third cycle is all about getting branched for the final releases. After the General Preview, we will remain frozen on the trunk until we're sure that there are no remaining major problems surfaced by the Preview testing, and until we're sure that we're fully localizable and all risky bug fixes have landed. During this time, drivers will be looking for low-to-medium risk cleanup work for the Firefox 1.1, Thunderbird 1.1, and XULRunner feature sets. We intend to not be accepting any new features at this point. When we feel good about the state of things, we'll create the 1.8 branch (opening the trunk to Gecko 1.9 development) and shortly thereafter we will start delivering Release Candidate builds for Firefox. As we work through the Release Candidates, the fixes we'll be approving will be limited to spit and polish, and responding to any late-surfacing problems from the earlier candidate and preview releases. It's likely that once we're on the branch, our primary focus will be to ship Firefox 1.1, with XULRunner and then Thunderbird 1.1 following afterwards, as was the case with the 1.0 releases.

I'll be posting a more specific status for the current cycle sometime in the next day or two and hope to have regular follow-ups to that post so stay tuned to npm.seamonkey for updates.