I'm currently using version 3.6. I want to stay on 3.6 as long as
possible but I'm not sure how much longer Mozilla will support it. Is
there a lifecycle policy in place for versions. Are there any know End
of Life/Support dates?
best regards,
Philippe
Why do you want to stay on 3.6 instead of upgrading to the latest version?
--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
(In the past, though, Mozilla has kept older versions up to date for much
longer than this)
cheers,
mike
On 17/05/2011 9:09 AM, "Henri Sivonen" <hsiv...@iki.fi> wrote:
>> I'm currently using version 3.6. I want to stay on 3.6 as long as
>> possible
>
> Why do you want to stay on 3.6 instead of upgrading to the latest version?
>
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsiv...@iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
> _______________________________________________
> dev-planning mailing list
> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-planning
thanks for your reply.
In fact, I make spécific dev under 3.6 which don't work on 4.0. I
would like to know how long I have to change all.
Do you think Mozilla with keep version under LTS (long term support)
like Ubuntu for example, since they will launch a new version every 6
month or less (?)
Best regards,
Philippe
-- Mike
Everyone's being very cautious in this thread to make no promises at
all. But I suspect, based on historical data, that it is likely
(though not guaranteed) that 3.6 will be supported for several months
at least. In particular, we're only just about to stop supporting
3.5, and I haven't heard anything yet about dropping 3.6 support.
Am I completeness off-base here?
philou, with respect to the 3.6-specific development you have done, if
you describe what you've done I'm sure someone could help you
transition your code to 4.0+. (But dev-platform would be a better
place to ask about that.)
Nick
However, as far as I know there is no current policy specifying a specific length of support for Firefox 3.6 or 4. For Firefox 5 and later, the new version will *be* the security update for the previous version, so users will need to stay on the release channel to be supported and receive updates.
1. https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=ReleaseRoadmap&oldid=168833
"up to six months", actually, though as you say we have always (IIRC)
gone a fair bit longer than that.
Mike
Several people have repeatedly said in public places (newsgroups,
planning meeting, Monday meeting; could not find a blog or wiki
page) that Firefox 5 will be the security update to Firefox 4, and
that there will be no 4.0.2 unless some issue between now and
shipping Fx5 requires a chemspill response.
-Dan Veditz
I think we have three obvious options:
1) Just do what we've done in the past and continue offering updates to
3.6 and 4.0 until we are comfortable with the balance between "as long
as it takes to get most users migrated forward" and "until porting
security fixes back becomes unbearable".
2) Pull all the levers at our disposal, including automatic updates to
new major versions, as quickly as we can and stop back-porting all
security updates.
3) Treat 3.6 users differently from 4.0 users because the jump from 3.6
to 4 is much larger than the jump from 4.0 to 5.0. Keep supporting 3.6
with security updates and increasingly loud prompted updates to our
latest release until that number of users is low enough to make the
updates automatic. Make Firefox 5 an automatic update for Firefox 4 users.
I think 3 is the path we're on right now.
- A
Erm, IIRC, it was "at least six months" - and we probably are somewhat
bound to that earlier promise still for 3.6 - we should not be for 4 or
later, but I think we didn't say that very loudly, even though it's been
our understanding for some time.
Robert Kaiser
--
Note that any statements of mine - no matter how passionate - are never
meant to be offensive but very often as food for thought or possible
arguments that we as a community needs answers to. And most of the time,
I even appreciate irony and fun! :)
We never stated a _specific_ length ever, we stated a minimum, and for
3.6 we probably need to follow that one.
Firefox 4 should be treated as a member of the new breed in that regard,
and have 5 as its security update.
Actually, we are prolonging the security support for 4 and later, it's
not just a minimum of six months any more, now it's "forever", just that
the security updates always bring features and a new "version" as well. ;-)
Robert Kaisre
Actually that's wrong. The exact text of our commitment was:
"Last release to be supported with official security/stability updates
no more than six months following general available of current release"
You can find this throughout our old roadmap documents.
But we're so far past 6 months for 3.6 that it's a moot point there.
> we should not be for 4 or later, but I think we didn't say that
We've been saying it pretty loudly since before 4 shipped. I'm not going
to worry too much there.
- A
As I said in my earlier comment, that is incorrect. We stated a maximum
-- one that we've regularly ignored for the last few years in favor of
trying to keep users on a secure version of Firefox.
- A
Okay.
It is also possible to find the opposite statement. According to [1]
talking about Firefox 3:
"our policy is that there's a minimum of 6 months support after n+1
version is out"
However, it doesn't really matter, because it is hard to gracefully kill
these old major versions within 6 months anyway.
> But we're so far past 6 months for 3.6 that it's a moot point there.
You're thinking of 3.5 not 3.6, I believe. See list below compiled from
release notes and other notes:
FF 1.0 had updates for about 6 months after 1.5
FF 1.5 had updates for about 7 months after 2.0
FF 2.0 had updates for about 6 months after 3.0
FF 3.0 had updates for about 9 months after 3.5
FF 3.5 is still alive 16 months after 3.6
FF 3.6 is still alive 2 months after 4.0
FF 4.0 will be unsupported the moment FF 5.0 is released
FF 5.0 will be unsupported the moment FF 6.0 is released
FF 6.0 will be unsupported the moment FF 7.0 is released
...
Regards,
John
That's a mis-statement of our policy in a page of meeting notes. Sure
you can find all kinds of wrong information if you go digging for it.
The policy is a maximum of 6 months and it has been for years.
>
>> But we're so far past 6 months for 3.6 that it's a moot point there.
>
> You're thinking of 3.5 not 3.6, I believe.
Yes, I was confusing 3.6 and 3.6. Sorry about that. 3.6 will be getting
at least one more security and stability update at approximately the
same time as Firefox 5 is released.
- A
Easily done!
Interesting, do you have a link for that?
> It is also possible to find the opposite statement. According to [1]
> talking about Firefox 3:
>
> "our policy is that there's a minimum of 6 months support after n+1
> version is out"
That's how I remember it.
http://replay.web.archive.org/20060414183729/http://wiki.mozilla.org/ReleaseRoadmap
This is where we codified our commitment.
The update comment is "Last release to be supported with official
security/stability updates no more than six months following general
available of current release" and the text of the document is "the last
major release at any given time would be supported with security and
stability updates for up to six months following general availability of
the current release."
"no more than" and "for up to" both clearly communicate that 6 months is
the outer boundary, not the minimum.
That's the support commitment we made. There was no update to change the
commitment from a maximum of 6 months to a minimum of 6 months. Any
support longer than 6 months was because we were not satisfied with
leaving that many users behind. But that was not a change in our
commitment, it was us going above and beyond our commitment because we
thought, in particular circumstances, it was the right thing to do.
>> It is also possible to find the opposite statement. According to [1]
>> talking about Firefox 3:
>>
>> "our policy is that there's a minimum of 6 months support after n+1
>> version is out"
>
> That's how I remember it.
It's still wrong :-)
- A
Wow, has been widely published wrongly, then, to the point that a lot of
us believed the wrong version. in the view of that, the new model is
even easier to adopt. ;-)
Oh, dear. I've been linking the RapidRelease wiki in the support
group and the forums. Apparently it's out of date or I misunderstood
it. Thank you for your clarification. I'll stop linking to it.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease#4.0.x_and_Previous_Releases_.5Bjoduinn.2C_.5D
>This section clarifies some questions that have come up about the relationship between Firefox 4 and older and Firefox 5.
>
> 5.0 and newer processes will not be "backported" onto 4.0.x and older releases
> there will be 4.0.x releases and chemspill handling
> branch team is taking over for 4.0.1
> there will be 3.6.x and 3.5.x releases and chemspill handling
--
atb12345 at gmail dot com
Did you read the introduction to that section?
> *Current Discussions*
> This section documents key discussion points and proposals
> that are in progress or need to happen. It also notes
> anything unclear. Where possible, it documents owners who
> need to give input and/or drive the item to conclusion.
So, this is a discussion section, not an authoritative answers section.
That being said, there already has been a 4.0.x release and there may be
another if a critical security issue arises that requires a "chemspill"
unplanned emergency fix. But that would be an *unplanned* emergency
release and not a planned one. The planned security update for Firefox 4
is Firefox 5.
- A
There has been confusion even among the people who have edited that
wiki page.
>> 5.0 and newer processes will not be "backported" onto 4.0.x and older releases
True enough, 4.0.x releases are built and managed in a different
way. Doesn't say anything about the lifetime.
>> there will be 4.0.x releases and chemspill handling
>> branch team is taking over for 4.0.1
Until we stop supporting 4.0.x
>> there will be 3.6.x and 3.5.x releases and chemspill handling
Until we stop supporting them. We have now for 3.5.x: the most
recent 3.5.19 release was the last planned 3.5.x release. Likewise
4.0.1 was the last planned 4.0.x release. There's always the small
possibility of an unplanned ("chemspill") release.
Thank you for the clarification. I'll take it as being authoritative.
Thank you for the additional clarification. If Fx 5.0 becomes the
security update for Fx 4.0 like Asa says is planned and contains
security fixes that aren't in Fx 4.0, that seems to suggest that Fx
4.0 becomes insecure and no longer supported. In that case, would its
effective lifetime be over, i.e. it becomes EOL just like Fx 3.0 and
its predecessors?
5.0 will be offered as an automatic update. So, in the sense that 3.6.16 is "EOL" when 3.6.17 comes out, yes.
Christian
I think I understand. There won't be any 4.0.x releases after 5.0 is
released, i.e. 4.0.x will no longer be supported and becomes EOL.
Correct. But, this won't be as big of an issue as 3.0 and 3.5. For those, we popped up a window asking people to opt in (major update offer). For 4.0.1 users will need to opt out (minor update offer, like point/security releases). Of course the opt-in method leaves many more people behind.
I thought the plan was to do Chrome-style no-questions-asked updates.
Has the plan changed or did I misunderstand earlier? Or am I
misunderstanding what opt out means now?
--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
It is. I think what Christian means with "opt-out" is that you
explicitely need to turn off updates if you don't want to be
automatically shifted from 4 to 5.
It is commonly misunderstood as you have here, though, so something could
have been communicated better for sure.
On May 18, 2011 2:05 PM, "Robert Kaiser" <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
> Mike Shaver schrieb:
>> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Matt Brubeck<mbru...@mozilla.com>
wrote:
>>> Long ago during the Firefox 2.0 cycle, Mozilla's policy was that each
major version would be supported for six months after the next major version
was released [1].
>>
>> "up to six months", actually, though as you say we have always (IIRC)
>> gone a fair bit longer than that.
>
> Erm, IIRC, it was "at least six months" - and we probably are somewhat
> bound to that earlier promise still for 3.6 - we should not be for 4 or
> later, but I think we didn't say that very loudly, even though it's been
> our understanding for some time.
>
> Robert Kaiser
>
>
> --
> Note that any statements of mine - no matter how passionate - are never
> meant to be offensive but very often as food for thought or possible
> arguments that we as a community needs answers to. And most of the time,
> I even appreciate irony and fun! :)
> _______________________________________________
> dev-planning mailing list
> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-planning
Asa cleared that up already and apparently that was a long-carrying
wide-reaching misunderstanding then. In any case, it doesn't change our
policy for the future, I guess, so let's just keep the episode in mind
and try not to have something on that scale come up again. ;-)
Robert Kaiser
--
Note that any statements of mine - no matter how passionate - are never
meant to be offensive but very often as food for thought or possible
arguments that we as a community should think about. And most of the