Earlier today, I caught a Slashdot article that indicates MySQL 5.0 will be released this summer. Fedora Core 4 is similarly scheduled for June, and Mozilla Firefox / Thunderbird are slated to occur at roughly the same time. GCC 4.0 will probably happen sometime shortly before then.
All things considered, this looks like a lot of big projects are having major releases at practically the same time...
Have I missed any? Maybe we could do a low-level campaign to have them release all on the same day...
I admit, I pretty much had the patch ready to go when I filed the bug, and that it was a one-line change... but to get review+ and strong-review+ in four hours is phenomenal.
Thank you very much, rginda, bz!
This proposal is now official.
A fair number of the people interested in the milestone releases based on the Mozilla Application Suite are in either Europe or the United States of America. I believe that we should have semi-regularly scheduled "all-hands" meetings of the core team members at times which are convenient to people's schedules.
That said, I'm proposing the first meeting take place on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 at 16:00 UTC. That puts it at 8:00 a.m. in San Francisco, and 5:00 p.m. in Paris. The location will be irc://irc.mozilla.org/seamonkey .
All are invited, but based on traffic the channel operators may change the rules on who may post at their discretion. Consider the channel moderated, please.
Items on the agenda:
* Determine drivers, modules, module owners, a who's who list, etc. Basically, to figure out who we want doing what. Some of the roles may include a Quality Assurance Czar, a Mozilla Foundation liaison, spokespersons, documentation organizers, and core team members.
Items specifically NOT on the agenda:
* Product name and versioning. Don't even try. We're only getting started, and there are certain legal/logistic issues that have to be worked out first. Before we can work those out, we have to work out some basic manpower issues.
After we figure out key responsibilities and owners, we should probably schedule our next meeting. The goal for this first meeting is to keep it short -- namely, to end the meeting by 17:00 UTC.
You might be wondering, "What's 'MASS'?" Simple: Mozilla Application Suite Supporters. Join the MASSes... ;-)
Five years ago, I asked Netscape if they had any JavaScript 1.5 documentation. The answer I received was, "No, but would you like to write it?" I said no, I'm not qualified.
Eight months later, I realized I was wrong: I could write their reference and guide. Alas, it was too late, and the contract had already gone to someone else. This is all right, though, since I got something even better: a book deal with Sams Publishing.
Today, we Mozilla enthusiasts face a similar problem. There appear to be no plans for Mozilla 1.8 final. Well, a few good hackers don't like that idea! There's only one problem: they are few.
Before you tell yourself, "there's no way I can help get a Mozilla 1.8 release out," you should understand that it doesn't necessarily require you to know how to code. There's bug triage, QA, release notes (probably what I should contribute), and tons of testing!
A lot of it is dirty and underappreciated work... but it can be done. We just need help!
More than one person fears I want to fork Seamonkey or encourage people going their own separate ways. Not so! We can rally together and open new frontiers for the future of Mozilla... but only if we gather around and push towards a release we can call 1.8.
Who's with us? Mozilla hacking experience not required, as I said before -- at the worst, Mozilla use experience! Which means anyone... and I mean anyone who has an opinion and can use a web browser can help.
All bugs are shallow... but only if you give us your eyeballs. Come on in, the water's fine!
UPDATE: I should clarify that not all hope for a 1.8 final is lost yet. The Mozilla Foundation has made no official statement one way or the other, and may obsolete this whole thread and effort. I sincerely hope they do.
I've been invited back to the Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon. Last year's talk was about my Abacus MathML Editor. This year, I'm going as a panel member. The panel is one I proposed, asking the question, "Are open-source developers prepared for security bugs?"
For all I know, the answer could be yes. But given my experiences with bug 259708, the answer could be no as well.
I asked for this panel not to focus on Mozilla specifically, but to focus on general issues facing software developers. Security is still a relatively new concept for most open-source developers (even if it isn't for the industry).