I'm both breaking a promise and keeping one from my last email. This is the second status email, so I broke the whole "one a day" bit. BUT, I promised to send an updated status once QA had signed off and I am doing so.
QA has signed off on Firefox 4 beta 11. We intend to push it to mirrors tonight / tomorrow morning PST (whenever RelEng and the mirror admins want) and release to the beta audience tomorrow , 2011-02-08).
Just to let you know, releases aren't as easy as flipping a switch. The release mechanics generally follow these steps:
1. Release to mirrors
2. Wait for sufficient mirror uptake for update testing
3. Test the updates on the "releasetest" channel to make sure the bits on the mirrors are ok
4. Wait for sufficient mirror uptake for release to the beta audience
5. Push webpages live
6. Test the updates on the "beta" channel, get QA signoff on them
7. Update download links on mozilla.com
8. Announce to the world
Users won't get automated updates until step 6 and won't be able to download the new build from mozilla.com until step 7. So don't expect to wake up in the morning to "Firefox 4 beta 11 has been released" news articles.
As an aside, there are exciting plans to pipeline and automate the mechanics of releases to cut down the time it takes to go from QA signoff to tested bits on the wire.
Thanks,
Christian
