Changes to Firefox for iOS Schedule

[Stefan Arentz]

Hello everyone,

As some of you have noticed, we are not exactly following the Firefox for
iOS timeline that we wrote down at
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox_for_iOS_Train_Schedule

I would like to take a moment to explain why that is happening.

Both the iOS and Android teams have been asked to focus on some new
projects that are currently under the name of 'Context Graph'. Because the
two mobile teams are in the best position to write these apps at Mozilla,
we have decided to spend less time on Firefox for iOS and Android in the
second half of this year and more time on some new ideas. This is a matter
of resources and skills. Not because we think the browsers are not
important.

What these new ideas exactly are will become much more clear next week in
London. We don't fully know yet, but they will be important for Mozilla's
future. Like everything at Mozilla, these ideas and projects will be
discussed in the open and documented on Wikis and mailing lists like all
our projects. If you have not seen much, the reason is simply that there is
not much yet.

We do fully assume that these new projects or experiments also need to be
localized. So that is something we need to talk about when it is more clear
what these projects look like. It is also a good opportunity to discuss
what worked well and what did not work so well for Firefox for iOS and
Android localization and adjust our process based on that feedback.

Back to this Firefox for iOS 5.0 release: because we want to spend a
generous amount of time on these new projects, the 5.0 release is going to
be an important one. Absolutely not the last, but for now it will be the
release that my team can commit a significant amount of time to. This is
why we are currently more flexible with the timeline. Instead of strictly
following the schedule, we are taking more time to make this a great
release. We have a few thigns scheduled for v6.0 but we want to get as much
done as possible for v5.0.

We will be doing follow up releases, bugfix and feature, but we will have
to re-evaluate the train schedule. Localization work will not stop as we
have a few new features in the works and we always want to improve L10N
support in general. For example we made good progress with RTL support that
needs to be finished but also just regular minor updates to improve strings.

The Android release schedule remains unchanged, but you can expect a lower
number of strings to localize in the upcoming releases. Both Firefox for
iOS and Firefox for Android remain key elements in Mozilla's browser strategy,
and we will continue to develop and support them.

We understand this may inconvenience some of you. We are really trying to
make the best of this situation. For iOS we can be flexible with the
schedule, so if you feel we need to change it, then please speak up and let
us know. We are trying hard to do the right thing here but there is for
example a change that we will have to land a few additional strings or
discover the need for better terminology used. If this happens, we will
make sure the schedule stays realistic for everyone.

[Leandro Regueiro]

Hi,
Being flexible means a new schedule for Firefox for iOS 5.0?


Thanks