Firefox 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0 to Ship in 2011

i am having a doubt

will they release firefox 4 final

omg, they want to have higher number of version of Firefox then Chrome?

I doubt this. We have been waiting months to get Firefox 4 and we went from a delay to another delay to another delay ...

I would be surprised if Mozilla achieves it.
Unable to ship 4.0 on time, even when running 3 months late - its only remotely likely; and also only if they plan to integrate smaller changes for every release.
But then the change of 'version numbers' is now bordering on the ridiculous, thanks to Google. It is really as if just for the heck of it; or to give an illusion of 'development', when in reality, nothing much has changed beneath the surface.
I hope developers are not bitten by this seemingly idiotic syndrome, which is confusing end users more and more.

It's just marketing... For me, the number could be the same all the time, as long as the product works, and is still developed. Like FF 4 - no, there is a siginificant chenge from th 3.x family. But now? They want to be as Chrome is? Pointlessly incresing version numbers to charm the * users? Pleeeeease...

Well this is a bit too exagerated. I prefer the 4.x method but they cannot ship a new product in more than 5 months and they want to release another 3?
I'll be waiting for FF5 then cause I want animations. This is the thing that makes FF look older, despite their gorgeous UI. Good luck Mozilla!

I would say that they plan to release Firerox 8.0 when MS release Windows 8 in 2012

-sent via mobile

so firefox 7 is something like firefox 4.3

Maybe they should stop making silly plans and deliver Firefox 4.0!

I think a name change makes very little sense. Changing the name won't change how fast the browser develops. The fact that chrome does it is irrelevant--most users never see what version of Chrome they are running.

Think about it. Firefox has been around for 7 years. In 7 more, they'd be at Firefox 31.0. Software rarely can get past 20 without having to restart the numbering system.

They just aren't thinking ahead.

Mozilla is being very un-mozilla-ish about this, more in line with a large corporation than a community, especially when it deals with open source. Individual developers (like me) will not be able to keep up with a fast-paced 4-major-versions-in-a-year release plan, pretty much smothering open source development and separate braches based on the firefox code in favour of a corporate large-team development flow.

An important note is that it will also not allow time for proper bugfixing on current versions (just have a look at how long 4.0 has been in beta...). So we will see a lot of major releases (with a lot of new coding planned for each one, looking at Mozilla's roadmap page) and no time to actually get the code stable and bugfixed - as well as needing to provide update support for all the previous versions.

Mozilla is making ALL the wrong choices at the management level right now. I thought it was supposed to be a community, but apparently it's a corporation. Decisions are made one-way now, top>down. So much for the Mozilla mission statement that puts the needs of the user center stage?

Mozilla has certainly changed in the past few years.

Nothing wrong with behaving like a corporation -- corporations only succeed if they deliver what customers want. I think most of us seem to agree that putting out 4 major versions in 1 year is not a good plan. Whether that's done by a community that has reached the conclusion as a group or a corporation through whatever its planning processes are, doesn't matter.

Either way, it's unfortunate if it is moving away from what its users/customers want. Maybe we're not representative of the typical Firefox user, but if we are, they are making a mistake.

"Mozilla is making ALL the wrong choices at the management level right now. I thought it was supposed to be a community, but apparently it's a corporation. Decisions are made one-way now..."

Well said. I will be using the browser that is the LEAST played-with, the least tweaked every two months, the LEAST changed-around for no reason, i.e. toolbars on the bottom now for no reason or Tabs vertically on the right and you can't change it - I wouldn't put it past mozilla now that they have even more opportunities to change things for no reason. They are playing with the major version number just for the sake of marketing instead of setting the quality of a product as #1. Google's "Chrome" is not a good example of software discipline. It's entertainment software and google "plays" with software and changes things for no reason more than any other company on the Earth.

Ridiculous!!!! A version every 6 weeks.... At least do what Google Chrome does, update the darn thing automatically and don't bug me with this.