Firefox eyes faster release, to get more features

According to a proposal posted this week, Mozilla will add more features in a series of versions and will make new versions faster of its browser like that of Google. The new pace will result in a new browser every 16 weeks that means new three browsers in a year and Firefox 5 and 6 in 2011.
An analyst of IDC, Al Hilwa said it is good to see Mozilla looking hard at streamlining their development to achieve faster release cycle.
The change Firefox users would immediately notice under the faster scheme is that new features will regularly appear in the browser, rather than waiting for months while work on the next edition is completed. "The goal of the process is to provide regular improvements to users without disrupting longer term work."
Mozilla's move would be a major departure for the open-source company. Firefox 4, for example, was in development for over a year, while Firefox 3.6 took about the same amount of time to complete
To replicate Chrome's rapid release schedule, said Sayre's planning document, Firefox will need to include a "silent update" feature that automatically delivers upgrades in the background, a practice Google uses for its browser. "This proposal also requires changes to our software update behavior to make them happen more automatically in the background and interrupt the user less often," said Sayre.
Nightingale, however, denied that silent updates was a requirement for the faster pace.
In August 2010, Mozilla had listed silent updates as one of the features that would make it into Firefox 4. But later, the company yanked the feature from the browser. In an interview Wednesday, Nightingale confirmed that silent updates didn't make it into the final of Firefox 4, and said developers are still working on the tool.
"We have a lot of patches [for silent update] under way," said Nightingale.
It's unclear how Mozilla will ship Firefox security updates if it pulls the trigger on the frequent-update plan, or how long the company will support earlier editions. Currently, Mozilla frequently delivers Firefox patches: In 2010, for instance, it shipped 13 security updates for Firefox 3.6, which launched in January of that year.
Nightingale said discussions are continuing about how best to serve up security fixes for Firefox in a faster-paced development process.