14 DAY TRIAL // By the time that Mozilla gets done with the Beta phase of the development process there might be as many as a dozen Builds of the next iteration of the open source browser ahead of the first Release Candidate (RC). Having suffered numerous delays, only 10 Beta Builds of Firefox 4.0 were slated for delivery initially.
With Firefox 4.0 Beta 10 already shipped, and with Beta 11 now cooking, Mozilla is revealing the possibility that Beta 12 could also be offered to early adopters for testing prior to RC1.
At this point in time, there’s no actual plan to build Firefox 4.0 Beta 12, with Mozilla still aiming to make Beta 11 the last testing milestone before the browser graduates to the Release Candidate phase.
“If all betaN hardblockers are done by this Friday afternoon PST (2011-01-28) we will build beta 11 at that time. This is essentially staying on the previously posted plan
“If on Friday there are remaining betaN hardblockers we will not build and instead defer the decision until Tuesday (2011-02-01)
“If all betaN hardblockers are done by next Tuesday afternoon PST (2011-02-01) we will build beta 11 at that time. There will be no planned beta 12,” revealed Christian Legnitto, Firefox release manager.
However, there’s always the possibility that Mozilla is not going to manage and resolve all the hard blockers according to the current plan.
In such an event, shipping Firefox 4.0 Beta 12 becomes a very real possibility.
“If on Tuesday there are remaining betaN hardblockers we will make a judgment call. If on Tuesday the remaining betaN hardblockers are on track to land before Friday (2011-02-04), we will not build on Tuesday and instead wait for Friday. There will be no planned beta 12
“If on Tuesday the remaining betaN hardblockers look at risk to land by Friday (2011-02-04) we will create beta 11 on Tuesday and plan on having a beta 12. Beta 12 will not have a fixed schedule and will instead be built when the remaining betaN hardblockers are at zero,” Legnitto added.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 10 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 10 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 10 for Mac is available for download here.