On: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

[robin_reala]

Firefox is moving to a more Chrome-style of version numbering, to try and get enhancements out to the web quicker.

[wisty → robin_reala]

Or to try and get more free cake from the IE team ;)

[afhof → robin_reala]

If I wanted Chrome features, I'd download Chrome. The reason I use FF is /because/ I don't want to use Chrome. If FF just copies from other browsers, why have FF at all?

[joshz → afhof]

It's about faster release cycles not copying features.

[jonathansizz → joshz]

That doesn't explain why we have Firefox 5 rather than 4.1. It must be that the Mozilla marketers were worried that the major version numbers were too low compared to Chrome and IE, so by bumping them up every few months they can catch up! I'm so impressed!

[lurker19 → jonathansizz]

Trye, but unfortunately no one can match Chrome teams ability to rapidly ratchet version numbers. Chrome is is in a weird spot where they "had to" rapidly catch up to MS, but now it is awkward to shoot ahead to version 20 or 30. Presumably his is why they started downplaying version numbers once they caught up.

I wonder if Google is now committed to never break the Eextensions API now. To their credit, Android has done a great job with API compatibility over versions, not breaking old apps. Maybe Chrome can too, and dropping version numbers has raised the bar for software quality, just like forcing auto-upgrades has.

The whole thing is a bit silly.

This post composed in emacs 23. (Not really)

[richbradshaw → lurker19]

Emacs has followed a similar idea, essentially they just dropped the 1. (or was it 0. - can't remember!), so emacs 23 is really v1.23. Chrome is similar – why use endless non integers for main builds?

[Wickk → afhof]

What does a new release cycle have to do with using Chrome?

[jmilloy → afhof]

Of course, chrome-style versioning doesn't necessarily mean Chrome features. As I recall, at some point plans for Firefox just had way too many features and goals, so in draft at least they got split into 4 separate (and relatively rapid) releases. Is that correct? That sounds like necessity-driven decision making, rather than imitation-driven.

[lurker19 → jmilloy]

Firefox 4 took forever to launch, and in the meantime WebKit room over the world. A shorter tease cycle is the right thing the to do, and we can only hope that it didn't happen too late. Also, FF needs to fix extension versioning and API compatibility stat, or else the new release cycle will manslaughter 80% of Firefox's appeal: extensions.

I guess Google is lucky/smart because Chrome extensions are juiced up user scripts with no native code (I think?), but FF needs to do something to save old extensions.

[robryan → afhof]

You could also turn that around and say why have chrome at all. Chrome may be implementing some things first now but for most of the time it has been the other way around.