Firefox and Thunderbird hit the fortnightly release treadmill

https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/09/02/firefox-and-thunderbird-hit-the-fortnightly-release-treadmill/5293953

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/53326596

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/53326520

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/53326518

13 points · 5 comments · view on lemmy.world

5 Comments

solrize@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 5d (3 replies)

Jebus. They think instability is a virtue.

XLE@piefed.social · 5 pts · 5d

They've been itching for more releases to push more AI updates for a while. I wish I was exaggerating. Here's three examples of AI features being tacked onto bugfix releases:

(For those who don't know, bugfix releases only change the final part of the version number and are meant to fix bugs, while feature updates are meant for larger releases and tend to introduce them.)

ViatorOmnium@piefed.social · 4 pts · 5d (1 reply)

That's not necessarily the case. There's plenty of evidence that continuous delivery can lead to better software.

novafunc@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 5d

I agree in some respects. If you have something like Gnome with 6 month development cycles, you are kinda encouraged to push features even if they are not ready, otherwise you have to wait 6 months to try again. And as we've seen with stuff like triple buffering, it was painful. It was almost ready, missed the cycle, then other Gnome changes were made, then it had to be rebased, then go back to step 1.

With a shorter cycle, missing a cycle isn't as big of a deal and in theory you can polish it more without it being the end of the world.

But Firefox already had a monthly release cycle. I don't see how going from a monthly to fortnightly is really that different.

Dirk@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 5d

Oh shit, more stuff to fix in user.js.