MOZILLA'S 2011 ROADMAP TOO AMBITIOUS?

Mozilla has published an updated roadmap in which it lays out its plans for 2011. The organization hopes to significantly shorten its release cycle and deliver a total of four major releases during 2011, cranking the browser up to version 7 by the end of the year.

Some of Mozilla's key technical priorities include improving responsiveness, integrating social sharing, refining the user interface, supporting 64-bit Windows and Android tablet form factors, finally delivering process isolation for tabs, and supporting emerging standards like CSS 3D transforms and WebSockets. In terms of features, Mozilla's 2011 roadmap is compelling and achievable. There is room for skepticism, however, about the organization's new release management strategy. Instead of aiming to roll all of this functionality out in a major release next year, Mozilla intends to push it out to users incrementally, using a series of three releases after the upcoming launch of Firefox 4.

The ambitious plan will require Mozilla to completely reinvent its development, testing, and release management practices. The organization currently averages one significant release a year and typically spends months on beta testing and quality assurance before officially issuing a new stable version. Mozilla will face major technical and operational challenges as it attempts to transition to shorter release cycles.