Mozilla Holds The Fox v1.1 Update Cancelled in Favor of v1.5 Release Tim Gray
The Mozilla Foundation will hold off releasing the next revision of its popular open-source browser Firefox until late September.
The announcement, made by developer Ben Goodger on the Mozilla Web site, is likely a stalling tactic to shore up recent security difficulties in the browser. Firefox 1.1 had been scheduled for release this month.
"Nothing is scrapped, this is just a version number realignment," Goodger wrote on his blog. Citing a number of significant upgrades, including Gecko features, such as SVG and Canvas, as well as many application functional enhancements, Goodger said the latest felt more like a v1.5 update to everyone than a v1.1.
Earlier this month, officials at the foundation were forced to update 12 security issues discovered in the Firefox code, as well as stability fixes to the browser.
It was the first update since May, when the organization fixed three critical bugs to the Mozilla Update Web service. Firefox 1.0.4 was rushed out the door days after two of the flaws were published by an outfit called the Greyhats Security Group.
"So we've decided to re-brand the release Firefox 1.5, and once that is released (we're not pushing it out to accommodate more big features that weren't on the 1.1 plan) focus our efforts on a compelling 2.0."
Goodger said the foundation is planning to release a beta version of Firefox 1.5 in August, although as the roadmap points out, the dates are tentative and serve only to give an idea of the relative position of one release from another.
