Interviewed by CNN on 06/10/2011 11:55, Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd) told the world: > > > Justin Wood (Callek) wrote: > > >> Insert -> Characters and Symbols > >> has no options. > > > > Rob, unfortunately this is a known issue, I plan to release an addon > within the week to correct this, as a hotfix. and will get the real fix into > a 2.4.2 *IFF* there is another reason for a "chemspill" release. > > In many ways, this hearkens back to my message of a day or > so ago, where I expressed my concerns that Seamonkey users > were beginning to lose their brand loyalty, almost certainly > as a result (direct or indirect) of Seamonkey's following > Firefox's rapid release schedule as well as its seeming > determination to follow Firefox's lead, regardless of whether > that lead is consistent with Seamonkey's heritage and the > expectations of its users. > > Having just read Justin's message (above), it seems to me > that Seamonkey is indeed suffering as a result of those two > philosophies, and I would therefore like to offer, for > serious consideration, an alternative which I /think/ might > help to retain Seamonkey's existing user base, and perhaps > even enlarge it if Firefox users are similarly getting > p****d off with the problems that seem automatically > to follow from the need to release on such a tight > time-scale. > > I would like to propose that Seamonkey continue to make > use of Firefox and Gecko as its core components (I do > not know to what extent it also draws on Thunderbird), > but rather than slavishly following Firefox's 6-week > cycle, it adopts an altogether more leisurely approach. > > What I propose is that Seamonkey aim at a 6-month release > cycle, using Firefox/Gecko from six months ago as its > basis. This will allow adequate time to identify bugs, > features that are counter-intuitive to Seamonkey users, > ill-advised design decisions, and so on. > > This does not mean that later Firefoxes/Geckos will > necessarily be ignored; if, for example, they address > a bug in the version selected as the basis for the > next Seamonkey, then of course the bug fix can be > incorporated. But there should be no last-minute > (or last week, or perhaps even last month) changes : > there should be a good, stable Seamonkey in beta-test > for at least a month before it is released to Seamonkey > users in general.
While it looks nice in theory, in practice I don't know if it's feasible. I see a number of problems with it. The first, the biggest one, is that for 75% or the time Seamonkey will be running on an *unsupported* and *unmantained* version of Gecko. Any Gecko issues (including very serious ones -- security issues are in most of cases Gecko issues) that crop up in that period will go unfixed for months. To illustrate, let's imagine, for the sake of argument, that Seamonkey 2.5 were to be rescheduled for 6 months in the future (April 2012), roughly coinciding with Firefox 11. SM 2.4.x runs on Gecko 7. But by middle November, when Firefox 8 is release, Gecko 7 is going to be dropped. So there would be no support available for Gecko 7 from November to March. Then, from the developer's POV, the compatibility leaps will be much, much larger. Instead of assimilating the changes in Geckos 8,9 and 10 once at a time, all the changes from 7 to 11 will have to be added at once. More changes to do, more stuff to break, all at once. And here's the thing: you can't really "start early" on your work regarding Gecko 11, because there won't *be* a Gecko 11 until January, when the branch is cut and it goes to the Aurora channel. Of course, you could delay launching Seamonkey after the official release of Firefox/Gecko... but that only *reduces* the percentage of time where Seamonkey can rely on Gecko maintenance. If you delay two weeks, you go from "unsupported 3/4 or the time" to "unsupported 5/6 of the time." However, some changes *might* happen that would make it possible to change the release schedule. The Firefox team is studying how best to address concerns from the corporate IT crowd, who would like a less-frequent release schedule. They *might* go with a once- or twice-a-year "extended support" release. IF (and that's a big "if") it happens, it would become possible to base Seamonkey on those releases instead of the regular releases. Whether this would be a good idea or not I would have to leave to the people in the Seamonkey Council and the Dev Team, who know a lot more than me about those issues. -- MCBastos This message has been protected with the 2ROT13 algorithm. Unauthorized use will be prosecuted under the DMCA. -=-=- ... Sent from my fax machine. *Added by TagZilla 0.066.2 running on Seamonkey 2.4 * Get it at http://xsidebar.mozdev.org/modifiedmailnews.html#tagzilla _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
