Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Neowin did claim, then corrected it. http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=398139

Majorgeeks still have a nightly build and claiming it is "Firefox 1.5" without any mention of the wording Release Candidate (RC) and/or nightly.

http://digg.com/software/Firefox_1.5_going_live_today_

Corrected themselves after realizing the rumours were wrong.
http://stuff.techwhack.com/archives/2005/11/16/161111-mozilla-firefox-15-could-be-launched-today/

Oh I'm sure there are others who fell for the rumours without confirming first.

Maybe put "release candidate" in the title to prevent this kind of confusion? Just a suggestion.

@GamingFox: Read the update part from:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2005/11/rc2_update.html

But I have also a question: When will there be the flags in bugzilla for RC3? Or is there an other way to see the taged bugs?

Why are we having a RC 3?

I don't know if there are any other fixes to come for RC3, but there were already a couple of fixes made after RC2 - burning edge has the info.

They can't put "release candidate" as a title within the build itself if the build is actually a candidate for release. The idea is that if no problems are found, the release will be the exact same files, just renamed. If the builds were labelled as "release candidate" they would have to do another round of builds to remove the label, and do another round of testing on them.

I already read the update and I already know the reason behind it, but my main concern is the confusion we are seeing right now. People thought they are getting the actual 1.5 and there are NOTHING in entire browser that even say this is "release candidate". I am just simply making a suggestion which I already know they refused. I just raise it again as point of information (a reminder).

Clearly, Asa and the rest of mozilla developers HAVE to know that someone WILL jump the gun dues to lack of clarification in the browser. It is inevitable as long they leave out "release candidate" somewhere (it doesn't have to be in title, you know).

I agree with several people's comments about not having the words "release candidate" somewhere in the program (preferably in the title bar). Two different pieces of software should *never* have the same version number ... that's what the version number is there for in the first place!

Leaving the words "release candidate" out just to prevent having to build again seems like pure laziness to me. If the only change between a release candidate and an actual release is a string change (to change the program title), and the actual build demonstrates problems that the RC did not, then something is *clearly* wrong with the build process.

I think it would be great if we could avoid being lazy ... it's just one more build!

Something along the lines of RC2 does not say RC2 in help about, because if there are no problems found it will be the final release!?

Seriously do people think before they post here?
the only thing that should have the RC written is the installer .exe which can be renamed pretty easily.

Are you surprised? There is no indication whatsoever in the software that it is an RC. I would be smarter to mark it as such. I don't think that respinning binaries/installers would be a great burden in the event that no further issues are found.

poningru: the installer is in a folder which has the rc2 in it. And actually I d expect every major site (drivin by professional journalists) to do at least some research. Like checking the mozilla website.
The jump the gun anways seems to be caused not by the lack of a hint in the RC. The ppl a neowin know the deal. They cover every MS oiece of software from alpha status on. (okay some only from beta on if ms succeeds in keepin em secret)
No. Jsut some dude over there at neowin tried to be first on something as it seems. Others shared his idea.

I mean what is the point? Anyone who redistibutes the installer should get it from m.o (talkin bout major sites). And ppl who dont understand the purpose of a RC shouldnt use it at all. Actually i wouldnt distribute RCs if i was a major site.
RC testers should get it from the home of it.

Here's an apology from the guy who assured one of the Newowin Newsies that it would be the build:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=398362

Why are we having a RC 3?

Showstopper.

Not a surprise since 1.5 has suffered the worst testing process since Phoenix came out.

Oh please! You don't need to rebuild just to change a version from RC to normal. It can be stored in a resource file and loaded from that. Resource files can be part of the exe files, but still be edited after complication. Not sure how it works in other OSs, but that's the process for Windows.

"Oh please! You don't need to rebuild just to change a version from RC to normal."

Depends what you mean by rebuild - if you include in the "build" process bundling up the resource files into the installation package, then changing the version is a rebuild. Various stuff depends on the version information, and changing it has actually broken stuff in the past (of course that shouldn't happen, but it can, so you still need to test).

They could (and have previously) released a release candidate which is only a candidate in terms of the code, and then do further builds and more limited testing on them, but that does take longer, and everyone is always in a hurry to get the release. People also complained when changes were made after the "release candidate" and therefore that it shouldn't be called a release candidate.

They really can't win - if they set a release date and miss it, people complain, if they leave the date flexible, people complain, if they release quickly, people complain, if they do more testing before release, people complain. Each time a part of the process changes, someone says that doing something different would be better.

If the team was so confident in RC2 that it didn't want to call it RC2,
why was it released as a release candidate?

Traditionally, a "release candidate" means you're 99.999% sure it's ready, but you just want some last-minute testing. You don't generally use it to mean "well, it's past beta stage, but we still have these five bugs we want to work on," which is what Mozilla used to label a Firefox release candidate. They got flak for it. So now they're using the traditional meaning... and they get flak for it.

The Internet really has brought about the era of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Some of the other OSS do the same thing also by automatically naming a RC as final when they are happy with it, e.g. Openoffice. Spinning new builds, especially with all the localizations can take some time, and may introduce new errors, without addding any real benefit. I don't see what all the complaining is about.

i've got the rc2 on my box at the house, since i installed it i have had real problems email pics, and viewing ads (what a bummer i know), the ads just say that the connection with server was reset...just a heads up

I'm glad it's still at the RC stage. I'm still experiencing bugs with copy/paste in tabs, the arrow keys and pgUp/pgDn failing intermittently, and other odd problems on XP SP2. I've been through all the Mozillazine fixes and these bugs persist (no, I don't have new.net, never did).

It seems to be related to switching tabs to quick while pages are still loading. Hope it's all fixed in the final build! Thanks for getting the final bugs out guys.

You'd think that someone would look at the front of mozilla.org and see that the 1.0.x release is still front and center. I've definitely been using/abusing since deer park land, but there is a reason that we all beat this thing into the ground FIRST before it gets into the hands of people that if they found a bug, would freak out!

Loving 1.5 though. Good work!

This blog is getting very hard to read without threading. How about a fix?

Hey could someone email me about this/? When using 1.5+ if I hit the down
key it drops to the bottom of the page as though I were hitting page down
instead of scrolling down. It didnt do that in 1.0.7.

E6Carbon43@gmail.com thanks

it looks like 1.5rc-3 will be released the 17? or is this incorrect? http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/

Spam spam spam eggs and spam.

Call me crazy, but aren't people that are already running some version of 1.5 being rather impatient about updates? After all, when they're released FF will let you know there's an update available. I just let FF do the work for me and if it's the final version, great.. if not, it's still an update nonetheless.

On my secondary computer, I just ran the update on FireFox 1.5 Beta 1, it then said an update to 1.41 was available and updated to Beta 2, and restarted. Then I ran it again, and then it updated to RC3.

Is this expected behavior for just the Beta period, or should it grab both updates at once? It did seem to grab RC1, RC2, and RC3 changes in just one file...

Is the update system designed to grab one update if somebody updates to 1.52 from 1.50 or one for 1.51 and a second one for 1.52? (This is a future tense question of course.)