Firefox/Planning/2011-10-05

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Planning Meeting Details

  • Wednesdays - 11:00am PDT, 18:00 UTC
  • Mountain View Offices: Warp Core Conference Room
  • Toronto Offices: Fin du Monde Conference Room
  • irc.mozilla.org #planning for backchannel
  • (the developer meeting takes place on Tuesdays)

Video/Teleconference Details - NEW

  • 650-903-0800 or 650-215-1282 x92 Conf# 95312 (US/INTL)
  • 1-800-707-2533 (pin 369) Conf# 95312 (US)
  • Vidyo Room: Warp Core
  • Vidyo Guest URL
REMEMBER
These notes are read by people who weren't able to attend the meeting. Please make sure to include links and context so they can be understood.


Actions from Last Week

Kev to come back with a summary of the current state of the ESR discussions

NOTE: As of 11:00 Pacific, this update is incomplete. I will update this page by 13:00 Pacific, and will go over missing items on the call.

The response from the Enterprise User Working group has been mostly positive, in that the proposal meets needs. We've also spoken with large software vendors, and the concept of the ESR is something that they believe they can work with. There are concerns around specific sections of the proposal, notably:

  • The possible limitation of ESR to two full release cycles (this has been outlined as a minimum, per the proposal, but there is concern that the ESR would end at the minimum)
  • Limited access to the ESR via authentication or paywall mechanisms

In addition to the discussions around the ESR, there has been additional discussion around GPO and MSI support, but those conversations are out of scope for the proposal itself, and we're trying to keep them separate.

Media response to the proposal has been factual, and has been neutral across the board. In general, the proposal has been accepted as something that addresses needs and shows that Mozilla is listening, but needs ratification from both organizations that deploy Firefox and Mozilla itself. References to various articles written about the article are available below:

CNET News: Mozilla proposes not-so-rapid-release Firefox Computerworld: Mozilla proposes 5X slower Firefox release tempo for enterprises Conceivably Tech: Mozilla Proposes 42-Week Release Cycle For Firefox in Businesses Ghacks: Mozilla Proposes Extended Support For Firefox ZDNet: Mozilla attempts to appease enterprise users with talk of 42-week Firefox release cycle PC World: Mozilla Answers Business Users with a Slower Firefox Schedule InformationWeek: Firefox Enterprise Support: Mozilla Changes Its Tune ITProPortal: Mozilla Proposes 'Slower' Firefox Releases for Enterprises PC Pro: Firefox offers slower release cycle for business PC Magazine: Irked By Quick Release Cycle Get Extended Firefox Support Tom's Hardware Guide: Mozilla Proposes Firefox ESR Versions for Businesses‎

Schedule & Progress on Upcoming Releases

Firefox Desktop

Release (3.6, 7)

Beta (8)

  • Expecting to start 8.0b2 today

Aurora (9)

  • Add-on compatibility bump is scheduled for next week

Nightly (10)

  • Seeing bad user sniffing due to two digit version (we knew this would happen)
    • bug 690287 - Tracking bug
    • bug 690391 - Be proactive in impact assessment
    • We are discussing some potential mitigation, nothing to share yet

Firefox Mobile

Top customer issues and plans to fix

Top three FF7 issues and plans for resolution:

  • Performance: 22% of & 2 star reviews on Android market this week report that FF7 is too slow. Startup shrink and memshrink projects continue work to resolve, see also https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Notes/05-Oct-2011#Performance.
  • Flash player support: 22% of 1&2 star reviews on the Android Market this week report that they need Flash player; flash player is the top complaint (other than device wish list) on SUMO with 98 votes this week, Flash is the most common issue reported against FF7 on input.mozilla.com. 17% of email sent to 'the developer' from Android Market this week were also requests for Flash support. Flash support did not make FF9, but there is a prototype in progress, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=630007
  • Stability: 11% of 1 & 2 star reviews on the Android Market this week report that the browser is unstable: freezes phone is most common, followed by crashes, and lastly it is resource heavy.

Top three FF8 issues and plans for resolution:

  • Permissions: 24% of 1 & 2 star reviews on the Android Market this week report that the browser has unacceptable permissions (phone identity), see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=691054 for the fix
  • Support for flash is second most common below-average review comment.
  • Performance (slow & unstable) is third.

FYI: 55 people on SUMO reported receiving a fraudulent SMS message about a Mozilla Firefox phone number drawing in the UK requesting an email reply. http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/881358

Perf Bugs

A small selection of bugs we are (or could be) looking at:

  • bug 674651 - nsContentPolicy should skip resource and chrome schemes
    • Updated patch and found small to no improvement. Looking to make sure all the code paths are covered.
  • bug 689713 - Warm up the DNS cache in Java when launching with a URL intent
    • Need to test
  • bug 690903 - nsFormHistory should lazily initializes SQLite DB
    • Patch in progress
  • bug 691534 - Use asyncFetch when loading files in aboutHome.xhtml
    • Landed and requested Aurora approval
  • bug 690901 - Start building a new profile in Java instead of waiting for Gecko to load
  • bug 690898 - Use pre-built SQLite DBs when creating a new profile

7

8

  • New permission request added which has caused poor ratings
    • backed out on trunk
    • need to figure out what to do about scary permissions

9

  • Requesting approval for some followups for tablet theme
  • Requesting approval for some perf improvements
  • Requesting approval for some camera crash fixes

10

  • More performance work
  • Potential new stuff: Phone UI, Reading Mode and Flash

Firefox Sync

  • Firefox 7:
    • Mitigations are being taken to fix the Sync issues occurring. Expected to be back to normal tomorrow.
    • A postmortem will be held.
  • Firefox 10+:
  • New Inbox for Sync ideas that will be reviewed monthly - Anyone welcome to contribute

Add-on Builder

  • upload to AMO launched last week, will be updated today to fix a couple of small issues.
  • 1.0 final public release remains targeted for early to mid-Q1 2012
    • I will be engaging with marketing as that time horizon draws near
  • Q4 2011 goals are on the goals wiki under the AMO section
    • This quarter is about shaping and hardening the existing feature set for the upcoming final release
  • KPI stats update:
    • There are currently over 8,500 registered users on the Builder - an increase of almost 400% Q/Q
    • The Builder is currently home to some 15,700 add-ons and libraries, ~2,000 of which have seen significant development - an increase of more than 400% Q/Q

Add-on SDK

Release (1.1 -> Firefox 7)

  • Did a post-mortem on repacks process
  • posted a proposal for repacks (short term and long term) on dev.planning, addons blog, and jetpack forum (Proposal)

Stabilization (1.2 -> Firefox 7, 8)

  • Third test build 1.2b3 spun yesterday
  • Are moving release up one week to Oct. 18th (discussion)

Development (1.3 -> Firefox 8, 9)

  • Merge to stabilization will also be moved up one week to reflect new schedule

Feedback Summary

Desktop

Firefox 7.0.1

  • Lots of sync complaints around server problems (mainly because it's distracting)
    • Can't delete accounts because of a deletion-page error (users try that first when they get errors)
    • We may have broken the "reset your sync account" fix as well
    • Errors about incorrect passwords are not the correct error and often confusing.
  • Add-on compatibility
    • Yahoo Toolbar is definitely incompatible and not fixed by 7.0.1 but I'm no longer sure about the lost bookmarks tie-in.
      • From kev: Yahoo took down bookmarks.yahoo.com, Toolbar is compatible but binary isn't which leads to bustage and a storage migration that prevented users from accessing the bookmarks they had.
    • AVG -- users need to update manually.
    • Some norton complaints but getting better -- Updating is slow
  • Yahoo Mail errors (may have been server problems on their end)
  • Angel (a course management software used by a number of universities) isn't compatible with Firefox 7, some schools are advising users to downgrade to Firefox 6. bug 673714. Blizzard is working on this.
  • Lots of complaints about java: [1] and [2]. This may be related to Angel (above).
  • Complaints of freezing/hanging (again, may be more than usual, hard to say) [3] (for example).
  • "XML Parsing Error: undefined entity Location: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul." errors. Caused by add-on updates (may be related to updating from Firefox 3.X - Firefox 7), may be not.
  • Firefox gets stuck and is unable to load pages after a while. Caused by network.http.max-connections getting set to 256 (changed in bug 648570). [4]


Firefox 8

  • Videos on Apple.com only play audio (they're delivering h.264 content to Firefox builds). bug 528314
  • Can't drag and drop tabs into bookmarks: bug 674723.
  • Scrolling on some sites is slower than usual on OSX: [5]
  • Lots of Sync complaints here as well: [6]


Firefox 9

(A rehash for those of you in the Aurora meeting yesterday, but now with bug numbers!).

  • Add-on compatibility (in Aurora you get 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off), which is a pain
  • Weird toolbar resizing problems: [7] and [8] bug 691917
  • Problem with closing security exception window (?) [9]
  • A couple complaints about how we're moving tabs around: [10] and [11].
  • A couple complaints involving download manager behavior: [12] and [13] and [14] and [15] bug 691921

Firefox 10

  • Complaints about dropdowns not working with arrow keys: [16] (probably bug 690668 but a lot of complaints for somthing that's x64 specific).
    • Should get fixed after a quick bug review.

Mobile

This has moved UP to the Mobile status report ^^^

UX & User Research

Still looking for developers who want to watch usability sessions in Toronto during mobile week. Will take about 1 hour of your time from the 17th-19th. Contact Mary Trombley to get started.

Market Insights

Mobile

Summary below, full update here and in your inbox.

  • Android approaching 1 million activations/day as it launches a new version next week and conquers even lower price points ($35 in India)
  • Opera extended its partnership with Safaricom, Kenya's leading network operator
  • The iPhone 4s was announced, featuring an updated CPU and camera and iCloud integration
  • PhoneGap was acquired by Adobe, who also launched a new suite of mobile applications
  • UC Web, a Chinese mobile browser, prepares to target the US market
  • Amazon is rumoured to be interested in acquiring WebOS
  • 3G turns 10 years old. Japan, its pioneer, has a 96% penetration rate

Marketing, Press & Public Reaction




Mobile

  • Continuing to iterate on product positioning
  • Researching approaches to focus on tablet users
  • Putting together marketing plan for Firefox 9 release


Questions, Comments, FYI

Actions this week

  • Jen to come back with postmortem summary for sync issues in FF7
  • Daniel to report back on re-repack of SDK-based addons after version number bustage
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