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<div class="" id="magicdomid4"><span class="">The Firefox team is
currently moving to a <a
href="http://mozilla.github.com/process-releases/draft/development_overview/">schedule
driven</a> release process, this has various implications for
Thunderbird development.</span></div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid5"><br>
</div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid6"><span class="">There are two options
that the Thunderbird drivers have considered:</span></div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid7">
<ul class="list-bullet2">
<li><span class="">Adopt a new process that is schedule driven
and follows the Firefox process of being able to release
every six weeks (even if we don't release every six weeks).</span></li>
<ul class="list-bullet1">
<li><span class="">The advantages here are that we (have the
option to) keep users up to date with the current gecko
versions and security releases.</span></li>
<li><span class="">It'll also mean we can get out more
significant improvements to the users on a cycle which the
current security and stability releases don't allow.</span><span
class="author-g-kkk3hou0vz122zvykmmn"></span></li>
<li><span class="author-g-kkk3hou0vz122zvykmmn">We recognize
that there are disadvantages, too. For instance</span><span
class="author-g-bm244s1hd37926v7">, binary extensions will
need to be rebuilt for each release.</span></li>
<li><span class="author-g-bm244s1hd37926v7">In their document,
Firefox have highlighted some of the issues around
extensions and we will be working on picking up what
Firefox is doing to alleviate those issues.</span><span
class=""></span></li>
</ul>
<li><span class="">Maintain the current Thunderbird release
model and maintain old releases for a period of time after
the current release.</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span class="">The significant issue here is that
back-porting security fixes from Firefox will require
extra work, which doesn't help to advance Thunderbird. </span><span
class="author-g-bm244s1hd37926v7">Back-porting</span><span
class=""> may be additionally complex if the original
patch writers are not available to help us.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid15"><span class="">The Thunderbird
drivers have decided to adopt the new schedule driven process.
We believe that it will be better overall for Thunderbird
development and for our users.</span></div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid16"><br>
</div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid17"><span
class="author-g-bm244s1hd37926v7">We realise that this change
may not suit all enterprise situations, however we feel that we
need to move forward with Thunderbird development, and
back-porting would slow development down. We suggest that
enterprises use the <a
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/tb-enterprise">tb-enterprise
email list</a> for discussion if this plan will affect them.</span></div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid18"><br>
</div>
<div class="" id="magicdomid19"><span
class="author-g-bm244s1hd37926v7">We are currently thinking
about how to manage our release processes wrt the new Firefox
branches and hope to have more information out in the next few
days.<br>
<br>
Mark<br>
</span></div>
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