Firefox/Planning/2012-01-11
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
Contents
Actions from Last Week
Schedule & Progress on Upcoming Releases
Firefox Desktop
Release (3.6, 9)
- 3.6.26 security triage starting tomorrow
- Full unthrottling of FF9 to occur once we have a better understanding of bug 715396
- 3.6.25->9.0.1 advertised update planned for next week, will be announced once we're fully unthrottled on FF9
Beta (10)
- Code freeze for FF10 is 2012-01-20
- Go to build for FF10 release candidate will be 2012-01-23
- A decision about whether or not to ship add-ons compatible by default (and with what prefs set) will be made this same day
- Final sign-off for FF10 will be 2012-01-25
- Next source migration is 2012-01-31
Aurora (11)
Nightly (12)
Firefox Mobile
- Many patches are currently landing on Aurora
- Drivers are doing a great job with granting/denying approvals in a timely manner
- Mobile is using tracking-fennec:11+ to track bugs that need to be considered for Firefox11 (native)
- User-agent discussion is happening in dev.planning
Firefox Sync
- BrowserID+sync project in the design phase
- No longer targeting mobile world congress, or the fennec launch
- What it means for user privacy, security, other projects still being worked out
- UI changes in 10 not deemed sufficient, a papercuts project is in design phase
- So further changes will be made in 12+, the changes in 10 will remain unchanged (improvement, but still not good enough)
- 2012 roadmap is TBA
- So if there's something your team really wants from Sync, let us know
- Old News that bears repeating:
- the big feature for firefox 10 is the UI overhaul
- the big feature for firefox 11 is the Addon Sync engine
- Native Sync is still in progress, it is not enabled in native fennec yet
- Nota Bene: because of the intents methodology of android, more than one native sync/fennec install produces undefined sync behavior
Add-on Builder
Add-on SDK
Release (1.4 -> Firefox 9, 10)
- Released 1.4 (aka the Myk Melez Release) yesterday!
- New Simple Prefs module comes courtesy of community members Hernan Colmeiro and Erik Vold
- Brand new loader - new simplified XPI file structure
- Loads of changes - please read the release notes!
Stabilization (1.5 -> Firefox 10, 11)
- Merge from development branch happened yesterday
- All code switched to MPL 2!
- On track to release 1.5 February 21, 2012
Development (1.6 -> Firefox 11, 12)
- Jeff Hammel is going to help us get Talos testing up - expect that soon
- On track to merge to Stabilization February 21, 2012
Feedback Summary
Desktop
- New 9.0 issues:
- [1] Netflix doesn't work. Looks to be only 10.6 mac; may have to do with recent silverlight update.
- tabbrowser.xml not responding [2] and [3] also happened in 8: [4]
- Flash not working: [5] (may have to do with 64-bit flash?)
- Lots of norton toolbar compatibility questions [6][7]
- URL not valid complaints: [8][9]
- Possibly more Java breakage: [10][11]
- Some complaints that networks are slower with 9: [12][13]
- Existing known 9.0 issues:
- Yahoo web-based IM
- Bookmark icons
- Extended Support Release (ESR) was announced on the Mozilla Blog. First release should be Firefox 10, and final implementation details are being worked on with RelEng (bug 717106). Questions and/or comments are welcomed by kev (kev at mozilladotcom or kev on IRC)
Mobile
- Android market feedback on v9 continues to confirm that the NativeUI work to improve performance, stability, and add flash support will address a majority of 1 & 2 star reviews.
- SUMO questions about Firefox Mobile are up ~20% in the last couple of weeks, with a handful of Aurora questions starting to appear, mostly about features that are still being re-implemented in the new UI (find in page and sync).
- Input feedback for 9 and 10 beta is positive overall, with Flash support continuing to be a top issue.
UX & User Research
- Yuan is working with Jinghua to address papercuts in the Sync setup process before MWC.
- Draft of Q1 2012 goals have been posted to the main intranet goals page, will be finalized later this week
- Trond is in SF to work on Gaia (B2G) in the time leading up to MWC, say hi!
Market Insights
Desktop / Platform
Tizen
The Tizen initiative made an alpha release of the source code for the Tizen operating system, along with fairly detailed documentation of the Web API layer. Intel has now also officially joined as a member of the industry consortium.
In related news, Nokia purchased feature phone OS vendor Smarterphone this week.
Sencha
Sencha made an interesting blog post about their 2012 wishes for HTML5. They ranged from better support for media devices, improved audio support, better caching, a contacts API. Their number one wish was for a better mobile browser debugger.
Microsoft
It's still not clear whether or not Microsoft is going to support "legacy" Desktop apps on ARM-based hardware (i.e. tablets). There are conflicting screenshots from demos and Microsoft has not yet made an official announcement on the matter.
Microsoft also made a detailed blog post about the upcoming support for additional OpenType features in CSS: options such as kerning, superscript and subscript, ornamental swashes, etc. Firefox had previously been the sole browser to support this since version 4.
Opera
Opera launched the Opera TV Store, an HTML5-based store solution for connected TVs, available for OEMs, developers and content providers. The solution includes an emulator and dedicated developer tools, and can be deployed on any set-top box, Blu-ray player or HD Ready TV.
Apple
Forrester Research predicts that Apple's enterprise sales will increase 58% to $19b this year, and will double that again in 2013.
Google Chrome
The latest beta releases for Google Chrome have two important new features. Dynamic pre-rendering, based on heuristics and locally-stored data, of pages. When the browser is strongly confident that the user will click a particular link, it will preload and render the page. Another feature is that .exe and .msi downloads will automatically be scanned for viruses and trojans.
The latest beta channel for Chromebooks also offers support for OpenVPN connections.
Mobile
Summary below, full update here and in your inbox.
- Opera launched a HTML5-based app store solution for TVs
- The Dolphin browser was updated to 7.3 on Android and 3.0 on iOS
- Lenovo to launch first Intel-powered Android smartphone, the K800
- Samsung announced good Q4 2011 results, with 35 million smartphones sold
- Sony announced Xperia NXT, first Android smartphones without Ericsson
- HTC has had poor results in Q4 2011 results, selling less devices than Q3
- 1.67 billion phones will be sold this year, with 3G and 4G chipsets on more than half
- 16 out of the top 25 mobile companies by revenue are network operators
- Nokia confirmed North America focus and Lumia 900 device
- Nokia acquired Smarterphone, a producer of feature phone OS
Marketing and Public Reactions
- Firefox extended support will mitigate rapid release challenges
- Mozilla Gets Down to Business With Slow-Burn Firefox
Questions, Comments, FYI
- (Michael Verdi) What do y'all think about video recording and publishing these meetings for those that can't be at them? I almost always attend this meeting and just realized it's literally three clicks in my screencasting software to make this happen. Think about it. Let me know if you have concerns. Thanks.
- When will 3.6 MU be unthrottled?
- Answer: next week with unthrottling of 9.
- When will UAC removal as part of silent update ship?
- Answer: Firefox 12 with an asterisk.
- Why will we be possibly throttling Firefox 10 updates?
- Can johnath close this meeting with a cover of "Born This Way"?
- Can johnath close this meeting with an interpretive dance?
- Another potential vidyo room move (johnath)
