Mozilla 1.0 Release Pushed Back -- Milestone 0.8.1 Inserted into Development Roadmap Schedule

Mike Angelo -- 2 March 2001 (c)

Mozilla Organization Adds Milestone 0.8.1 to its Development Roadmap and Product Release Schedule

The Mozilla Organization has added an additional Milestone release to its Mozilla Development Roadmap and release schedule. Milestone 0.8.1 was added in between the recent 0.8 release and the upcoming 0.9 Milestone. It replaces and pushes-back the Mozilla 0.9 release date in the Roadmap schedule. That in turn pushes back the Mozilla 1.0 release date.

The Mozilla browser-suite is the basic, prototype, Mozilla-based application upon which other browsers, such as Netscape 6 and the upcoming new NeoPlanet browser, are based. The Mozilla browser-suite is open source and cross-platform. Mozilla builds are available for the Linux, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, and other operating systems.

This new Roadmap schedule sets Milestone 0.8.1 release for 19 March 2001 and Mozilla 0.9 release for 23 April 2001. Please see Table 1.

Table 1. Mozilla Development Roadmap Milestone Schedule
March 2001 Revision

Milestone
Start
Freeze
Branch
Release

Mozilla 0.8
3-Jan-2001
7-Feb-2001
9-Feb-2001
12-Feb-2001

Mozilla 0.8.1
9-Feb-2001
14-Mar-2001
16-Mar-2001
19-Mar-2001

Mozilla 0.9
16-Mar-2001
18-Apr-2001
20-Apr-2001
23-Apr-2001

Mozilla 0.9.1 (or 1.0?)
20-Apr-2001
23-May-2001
25-May-2001
28-May-2001

The 21 December 2000 Mozilla Development Roadmap revision had set Milestone 0.9 release for 19 March 2001 and Mozilla 1.0 release for possibly as soon as 23 April 2001. In effect, the insertion of Mozilla 0.8.1 pushes Mozilla 1.0 release back about a month. Please see Table 2.

Table 2. Mozilla Development Roadmap Milestone Schedule
December 2000 Revision

Milestone
Start
Freeze
Branch
Release

Mozilla 0.8
3-Jan-2001
7-Feb-2001
9-Feb-2001
12-Feb-2001

Mozilla 0.9
9-Feb-2001
14-Mar-2001
16-Mar-2001
19-Mar-2001

Mozilla 0.9.1 (or 1.0?)
16-Mar-2001
18-Apr-2001
20-Apr-2001
23-Apr-2001

Mozilla 0.9.2 (or 1.0?)
20-Apr-2001
23-May-2001
25-May-2001
28-May-2001

Milestone 0.8.1 was added to the Roadmap schedule in order to allow the Mozilla developers time to fix more bugs prior to the Mozilla Milestone 0.9 release. In part this additional bug-busting round is because Mozilla 0.9, in addition to being a development Milestone release, also serves more or less as a beta branch-point for those people developing embedded Mozilla-based products that want to have a beta of their products

"The milestones are intended to be periodic check points for progress on the project, stability of builds, porting status, and are entry points for additional mozilla (sic) contributors to provide testing and engineering help on the project." (Project Sea Monkey http://mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/)

Nevertheless, recent Mozilla Milestone releases are reasonably stable and pretty much features-complete. They are quite usable -- insofar as the browser module is concerned. Moreover, they are much better than the Netscape 6.0 browser.

Browser-wise, we find current Mozilla Milestone releases good enough for regular use. So you might want to give the newest Mozilla Millstone, 0.8, a test drive. For more information about Mozilla 0.8 and download links, please see The Lizard Marches On: Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite Released and Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite RPM Builds Released.

If you want to test drive a brand new Mozilla 0.8 build now, we recommend that you install Mozilla 0.8 in it own directory, that you do not get rid of your current browser(s), and that you do not set Mozilla 0.8 as your default browser -- yet.

The original Mozilla Roadmap schema used the term Milestone plus a number, such as Milestone 18, to label its interim developer releases. Then in September 2000, after the Milestone 18 release, the Mozilla folks revised the Roadmap and changed the numbering schema to its present form, such as Mozilla 0.9.

At that time, the developer release plan jumped from M18 in October 2000 to Mozilla 0.6 which was released in December 2000. Then, the September 2000 Roadmap revision skipped from Mozilla 0.6 to Mozilla 0.9 for release in the 2001 first quarter. That September 2000 Roadmap plan jumped over Milestones 0.7 and 0.8. Please see Table 3.

Table 3. Mozilla Development Roadmap Milestone Schedule
September 2000 Revision

2000
2001

October
Later
Q1
Q2

M18
Mozilla 0.6
Mozilla 0.9
Mozilla 0.9.1
Mozilla 1.0
Mozilla 1.0.1