Firefox 1.0 Roadmap
Ben Goodger (10/7/2004)
Work to be done
Firefox will be one of the most critical delivery vehicles for Gecko technology in the 2004 and beyond. In order to get the best return on the years of effort that has gone into creating the platform upon which our software is built, exacting standards of quality and performance must be met. Our target for our 1.0 release is "best of breed" browser product on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X and before we can make that claim, a number of things need to be done. These tasks will be broken into the milestones that remain between now and 1.0.
Milestone Plan
This is, as always, subject to change.
| Milestone | Release Date | Bugs | Summary | |
| 0.1 | Pescadero | 2002-09-23 | Bugs | Initial release introducing customizable toolbars, simple new interface, performance and size improvements, and lots of destruction. |
| 0.2 | Santa Cruz | 2002-10-01 | Bugs | Improvements to toolbar customization, inline web form autocomplete, sidebar, extensions management, making preferences work (somewhat), more size improvements and bug fixing. |
| 0.3 | Lucia | 2002-10-14 | Bugs | A few more features, global Go menu, improvements to pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing improvements, redesign of bookmark groups, more speed and size improvements and lots of bug fixing. |
| 0.4 | Oceano | 2002-10-21 | Bugs | Shifting from features to bug fixing and polish. Plans to leverage the Mozilla 1.2 stability push to make Phoenix rock solid. |
| 0.5 | Naples | 2002-12-07 | Bugs | Polish and cleanup. Lots of bug fixing. |
| 0.6 | Glendale | 2003-05-16 | Bugs | Redesigned Options window, new default theme, smooth scrolling, automatic image resizing, and much more. |
| 0.6.1 | Glendale | 2003-07-28 | Bugs | Security and other critical fixes, middle mouse button pan scrolling, a few other fixes picked up off the trunk. |
| 0.7 | Indio | 2003-10-14 | Bugs | Updated helper applications management, automatic downloading, plugin control, bookmark panels, theme updates and numerous bug fixes. |
| 0.7.1 | Three Kings | 2003-10-25 | Bugs | Maintenance update for Mac OS X - focusing on a small number of critical bugs that were present in 0.7 (see link) including external URL handling (when used as default browser) and page Save-As. |
| 0.8 | Royal Oak | 2004-02-09 | Bugs + - ? | |
| 0.9 | One Tree Hill | 2004-06-15 | Bugs + - ? | "Feature Complete" -
|
| 1.0PR | Greenlane | 2004-09-14 | Bugs + - ? | Bugs with higher complexity/risk, localization impact. See queries. |
| Release Candidates: RC1 (Mission Bay - 2004-10-27) and RC2 (Whangamata - 2004-11-03) | ||||
| 1.0 | Phoenix | 2004-11-9 | Bugs + - ? | Ultra Critical Bugs, PR Feedback |
| 1.1 | Deer Park | March 2005 | Bugs | Re-sync with trunk. Ongoing HIG compliance work for Aqua, GNOME etc. |
OUT for 1.0
Font Options UI, Bookmarks Manager UI, any sweeping Help System Engine changes, Security UI update, Page Info Dialog UI, Default Extension Bundles (ben, et al.).
Tree Strategy Post 0.9
All development for the 0.9 and 1.0 releases will be done on the AVIARY_1_0_20040515_BRANCH. We need to focus on superior stability which means we can't really afford to wait until the dust settles on 1.8 mid year to see whether or not we have stable bits. By 1.0 time mid-year any critical issues with 1.7 should have been identified and we believe it will be a safer platform on which to release software.
1.0 Release Strategy
We had picked an ambitious target release date for Firefox 1.0 -
9/14 10/11 that proved un-attainable if we were going to
achieve the quality our users demand. Hitting our new target date, 11/9 -
our new and final release date, is still going to be a difficult
task. In order to hit this date and meet our goals for stability
and localization, we are targeting a Preview Release in early September by
which time the most risky/complex/localization impacting changes will have been made.
Localization teams should be able to begin translating shortly after this
point (the exact date of the localization freeze has not yet been set - we
will post information about this closer to the time) and we will do two more
release candidates focusing on stability and polish before the 1.0 release.
We will be requiring extra discipline and vigilance on the branch to keep
things stable and ensure quick turnaround for releases so as not to slow down
the schedule.
1.0+ Bugs, P1-P3,
1.0? Bugs, P1-P3
After 1.0
Shortly after 1.0 is released we will resync the branch with the Gecko trunk fully and there will be a period of bug fixing and little feature work leading up to a release tentatively called "1.1" which will be our first release off the trunk.
Marketing
With client products now among the most important delivery vehicles for Gecko technology, we will be building up an aggressive campaign to market the Firefox browser. The focus of this effort can be found at SpreadFirefox. A number of other initiatives including a new product site are being rolled out.
Branding
Firefox 1.0 will be called simply "Mozilla Firefox"... or "Firefox" for short. Version details will be displayed in the About box.
Support Network
Firefox has a tremendous community following, and we wish to highlight the following two sites - Firefox Help for a wide selection of Firefox extensions, themes, and other helpful information; and MozillaZine Forums - our premier discussion site for users and developers.