Firefox 2 End Of Life

(please reply-to / follow-up to: dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org /  
mozilla.dev.planning)

Hi everyone,

On June 17th, 2008, we shipped Firefox 3 / Gecko 1.9. As per the  
release roadmap (http://wiki.mozilla.org/ReleaseRoadmap) we're  
approaching the end of the six months for which Firefox 2 / Gecko  
1.8.1 support is planned. Support in this case means continuing to  
develop the security and stability patches for those code-bases, as  
well as issuing releases of Firefox and minor updates to the Firefox 2  
product.

Before setting a final date for this "end of life" activity (sounds  
drastic, doesn't it?) we wanted to get feedback on any requirements or  
issues that would prevent us from making the upcoming Firefox  
2.0.0.19 / Gecko 1.8.1.19 security and stability release our final  
support release on that product/branch.

The following issues have already been considered and covered:

* ensuring that we're able to issue a major update offer to the latest  
Firefox 3 release to all users (on platforms supported by Firefox 3)  
even after we officially end the support lifecycle for Firefox 2 , and  
thinking through the user experience there

* watching add-on compatibility numbers to ensure that the vast  
majority of Firefox 2 add-ons still under development have been made  
compatible with Firefox 3

* getting in touch with partners who bundle and distribute Firefox 2  
to make them aware

* considering implications for web services integrated into the  
product (ie: SafeBrowsing)

* ensuring that we don't offer major updates to people on unsupported  
platforms

* we have not begun triage for 1.8.1.19 in earnest, so please nominate  
any bugs that you feel should be included in this release, but realize  
that our development resources are finite, so decisions will need to  
be made :)

Presently 2/3rds of our users are using Firefox 3, with more than 50%  
accepting the first major upgrade offer back in late August. We're  
looking
through Hendrix and other sources to understand why people didn't want  
to upgrade and ensure that those bugs have been fixed - if you know of  
any that would result in the product not working on a user's system,  
please point it out. Please do not point out UI changes - those  
objections are well understood.

If you can think of other reasons why we shouldn't move towards end of  
life for Firefox 2 / Gecko 1.8.1, please let us know by replying (to dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org
  or following-up to mozilla.dev.planning)

cheers,
mike