about:mozilla - Firefox 3 Beta 5, SUMO Day, Thunderbird Bugdays, Labs updates, and more
In this issue…
- Firefox 3 Beta 5 released
- Get involved with Firefox 3!
- New Thunderbird Bugdays
- Mitchell Baker interview at The Guardian
- David Baron on the Acid3 test
- Mozilla Labs updates
- Crash reporting system changes
- 10th Anniversary party pictures
- Developer calendar
- Subscribe to the email newsletter
Firefox 3 Beta 5 released
Firefox 3 Beta 5 is now available for download, and you should read the Release Notes and Known Issues before installing. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning or on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso. For more information about the release, see the DevNews blog post.
Get involved with Firefox 3!
Hearing all the great things about the upcoming Firefox 3 release and wishing you’d been a part of it? It’s not too late! Even when all the development and testing is done, there’s still a very important job left to do. Providing user support can help make sure the release goes smoothly for users who are updating or trying Firefox out for the first time.
On April 11th the SUMO (support.mozilla.com) team will be hosting a day all about getting to know SUMO and how to use the site to help other Firefox users enjoy their favorite browser. If you’ve ever thought about helping out with Firefox user support but haven’t been sure where to start, this day is for you. For more information and details see the SUMO blog post and the SUMO Day information page.
New Thunderbird Bugdays
As part of its growing focus on users and quality, the Thunderbird team has announced that Thunderbird Bugdays will be held every Thursday. The purpose of these bug days is: 1) to reduce the number of bugs in the bugzilla database to a more manageable level, 2) to respond to and assist bug reporters in a more timely manner, and 3) to improve the quality of bugs in the database so they can be acted on more easily by developers.
Bug day brings together both new and veteran Thunderbird users for a day of bug squishing. #bugday on irc.mozilla.org is where experienced bug hunters will mentor new participants, and is where everyone can help each other, gang up on bugs, and have fun.
The Thunderbird team needs your help to make bug days effective and fun, so please take a look at our planning document and add your thoughts to the wiki or post to the developer newsgroup.
Mitchell Baker interview at The Guardian
Earlier this year, Jack Schofield interviewed Mitchell Baker in London for an article in the Technology section of the Guardian. He has now posted a longer rough transcript of that interview on the Guardian Technology blog. In it he and Mitchell discuss Mozilla and Microsoft, things that are more important than chasing market share, why Mozilla isn’t using Firefox to push Thunderbird more, and why Mozilla is taking a serious look at mobile. Read the full article at the Guardian blog.
David Baron on the Acid3 test
The Acid Tests are a series of “web standards compliance” tests put out by the Web Standards Project. The most recent of these is Acid3, which tests JavaScript, DOM, and SVG compliance (amongst other things). David Baron, prominent Mozilla developer and member of the W3C CSS working group, has blogged his opinions about the Acid3 test, how he thinks the test should be used as a measure of the various browsers, and what Mozilla’s strategy is as to completing the tests. You can read more at David’s blog.
Mozilla Labs updates
Chris Beard, head of Mozilla Labs, has posted a short update about what’s going on over in the laboratory. Last week saw the launch of major updates for a number of Labs projects, including Weave and Personas. They have also introduced the new Test Pilot project, aimed at strengthening the user testing framework and community around Labs projects. Additionally, Chris has been interviewed a few times recently, resulting in two articles that are worth checking out: Firefox 4 will push out the edges of the browser, and Mozilla wants to put a Firefox in the cloud and in your pocket. For more details, check out Chris’ blog post.
Crash reporting system changes
The Mozilla WebDev team has recently pushed some important updates to the crash reporter system (codename: Socorro) aimed at improving both system usability and performance. These changes include a widespread refactoring of the processor code (1/3rd of the Breakpad server architecture) and an update allowing for instant queuing of requested reports. For more details, see the post at the WebDev blog.
10th Anniversary party pictures
On March 31st, the date of the original Netscape source code release, we marked the 10 year anniversary of the beginning of the Mozilla Project. While we’re celebrating “10 years of Mozilla” throughout all of 2008, there were a few parties on the 31st to help celebrate the occasion, and naturally there were more than a few digital cameras present. Pictures from the events have been posted to Flickr, including under the “Mozilla Anniversary” keyword, the “mozillaturns10” keyword, and directly to David Rolnitzky’s account. It would appear that a good time was had by all.
Tuesday
Wednesday
- Mac Gecko Meeting
- Performance Infrastructure Meeting
- Performance/Leaks Meeting
- Mozilla 2 Meeting
- Crash Reporter + Analysis Meeting
Thursday
Friday
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