Mozilla eyes 'slower' Firefox rollout for businesses

With business users of its Firefox browser complaining about its rapid release cycle, Mozilla may slow its upgrade rate for enterprise users. Mozilla's Enterprise User Working Group drafted a proposal to offer Extended Support Release (ESR) versions for desktop Firefox. “To permit organizations sufficient time for testing and certification, the ESR will have a two cycle (12-week) overlap between the time of a new release and the end-of-life of the previous release... This will allow organizations to qualify and test against Aurora and Beta builds for twelve weeks leading up to the ESR, and an additional 12 weeks to certify and transition to a new ESR," the proposal said. Such ESRs, to be based on every five official releases of Firefox, would arrive every 30 weeks, and be maintained for seven release cycles or 42 weeks. Firefox 8 or 9 is proposed as the base of the initial ESR. On the other hand, Firefox 3.6 will be end-of-lifed 12 weeks after the first ESR is offered. Mozilla also made clear Firefox Mobile will not be maintained as an ESR. Mozilla will also ask organizations that deploy the ESR for assistance with testing alpha and/or beta builds of the ESR with their user base. A separate article on PC World said the proposal may show Mozilla's sincerity in addressing concerns over the rapid release cycle of Firefox. "(I)f there was any doubt about the sincerity of its subsequent pledge to serve business users better in the future, this move should pretty much take care of that. A slower schedule with extended support is a big step in the right direction," it said. — TJD, GMA News