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Mozilla The Internet Upgrades IT

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.1 Cancelled 260

geekwithsoul writes "mozillaZine is reporting that the Mozilla Thunderbird 1.01 release is cancelled. While they just released 1.01 of Firefox and intended to release an updated Mozilla Suite and 1.01 version of Thunderbird shortly thereafter, they've decided to address some additional issues and release ver. 1.02 of Firefox and Thunderbird 'soon.' The fixes will also be included in the Mozilla Suite 1.7.6 release. Ah, the joy of awkward numbering conventions!"
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Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.1 Cancelled

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  • Confused (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cortana ( 588495 ) <sam@robots[ ]g.uk ['.or' in gap]> on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:48PM (#11971202) Homepage
    Confused...

    Are they just trying to keep the version numbers of Firefox and Thunderbird in lockstep?
    • that's what it sounds like.

      MoFo is making some strange decisions as of late...
      • Re:Confused (Score:4, Informative)

        by ZephyrXero ( 750822 ) <zephyrxero@[ ]oo.com ['yah' in gap]> on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:10PM (#11971391) Homepage Journal
        Well, for one thing, the slashdot article had the numbers listed wrong. It's 1.0.2 not 1.02. As for them skipping 1.0.1 with Thunderbird, since it's just one number off in the third spot, I doubt anyone will really notice except us geeks...
        • Re:Confused (Score:3, Funny)

          by Phisbut ( 761268 )
          since it's just one number off in the third spot, I doubt anyone will really notice except us geeks...

          True... My version of Internet Explorer is 6.0.2900... I don't think I've seen all 2900 versions (although with the large amount of Windows updates I've done since I have WinXP, maybe I *did* update it 2900 times...)

    • Re:Confused (Score:3, Interesting)

      by puiahappy ( 855662 )
      I don`t think so, but maybe they have realised that Mozila FireFox is the first real opponent for M$IE, and they are developing it as fast as they can. A very good thing to do.
      • Re:Confused (Score:3, Insightful)

        by littlem ( 807099 )
        maybe they have realised that Mozila FireFox is the first real opponent for M$IE, and they are developing it as fast as they can.

        Seems unlikely - surely there are separate teams working on each?

  • numbers (Score:4, Funny)

    by kdark1701 ( 791894 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:48PM (#11971208) Homepage
    Ah, the joy of awkward numbering conventions!

    I think people will adapt. I never hear anyone complain about Winamp 5.
    • Re:numbers (Score:5, Funny)

      by El_Servas ( 672868 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:52PM (#11971240)
      Or about the Nvidia drivers' version numbers...
      I think they're going to start using scientific notation for those numbers. :)
    • Winamp 5 = (the stability of Winamp) 2 + (The eye candy and other fancy features of Winamp) 3.

      What about Netscape 6?
      They went from 4.7 or 4.8, to 6 (Mozilla created to be the next version of Netscape somewhere around 4.5 or 4.6)
      • Re:numbers (Score:5, Interesting)

        by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) * <slashdotNO@SPAMstefanco.com> on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:25PM (#11971493) Homepage Journal
        There was a Netscape 5.0 project, but it was scrapped. You can probably still get the source code somewhere.

        If I remember right, Netscape 5.0 used most of the UI-code base for Netscape 4.x, but used the new 'Gecko' rendering engine.

        I remember soon-to-be Mozilla Developers at Linuxworld and some Bay Area LUGs talking about how 5.0 was so horrible, they basically decided to rewrite the browser from scratch, using a few components from Netscape.

        Check out this Netscape press release from 1998: Netscape 5.0 was going to be released under a 'GPL-like' license. [netscape.com]

        Somewhere in there, Mozilla was born. My memory is fuzzy... so people with more knowledge feel free to correct me.
        • It used an rdf based UI and an upgraded NS4 layout. Gecko was a brand new engine that was probably going to replace the old one in a release after NS5.
        • Re:numbers (Score:5, Interesting)

          by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @11:07PM (#11972094)
          Netscape 5 was entirely based off the Netscape 4 code. Gecko was no where near ready for primetime use at the time. It was just an incremental upgrade from Netscape 4. It was scrapped because it wouldn't have been a very big step up from 4.x, and the thinking was that would've just given people an even lesser opinion of Netscape.

          Netscape 6 was always planned to be Gecko + XUL. Unfortunately it took a lot longer to develop than originally expected, so they ended up rushing it out due to how long it had been since there last was a major Netscape update. Of course the rushed 6 was barely usable and just hurt Netscape's reputation more.

          The open source version of the Netscape code was always called Mozilla. The Mozilla website used to always say something like "You probably shouldn't be using this unless you are a developer. Use something built off it such as Netscape instead." Which means the Mozilla Suite was never advertised, but rather they recommended people avoid using it. Hence why the suite never got a huge following. FireFox's success compared to Mozilla's is most due to the fact that that there was actually a lot of effort put into marketing FireFox, opposed to the anti-marketing of the suite.
      • Re:numbers (Score:5, Funny)

        by Simon Garlick ( 104721 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @11:26PM (#11972185)
        MS Word 6
        MS Word 7
        MS Word 97
        MS Word 2000
        MS Word XP
        MS Word 2003

    • Re:numbers (Score:5, Funny)

      by oskard ( 715652 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:43PM (#11971597)
      Especially when they say to themselves "I need a good Winamp Four-Skin"
    • I never hear anyone complain about Winamp 5.

      It's too bloody slow with the 'modern skin' enabled. Thanks.
  • by ziggamon2.0 ( 796017 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:50PM (#11971213) Homepage
    So, they want the Firefox and Thunderbird versions be in sync, is that so unreasonable?
    What's the big news here?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      As far as I can tell, it isn't meant to be big news, just simply a notification to the community that we'll have to wait a little longer for Thunderbird updates.

      I'm currently thoroughly enjoying Tbird 1.0, so I have no problems waiting.
    • Seems odd to me (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:03PM (#11971327) Journal
      I thought one of the advantages to decoupling the various Mozilla components would be that they could develop on timeframes that made sense individually.
      • Re:Seems odd to me (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Lehk228 ( 705449 )
        yes, but keeping the numbers in synch makes it easier to tell that you are up to date with all of them
      • Re:Seems odd to me (Score:4, Insightful)

        by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @11:49PM (#11972330)
        Well, these releases are about security fixes to the shared core of the seperate apps, not about features, so it does make sense to syncronize the updates.

        If the Gecko core was used as a shared library, you'd be able to just download an update to that and fix both apps at once. But since the core wasn't designed for seperate apps, you have to download updates for each individually instead.
    • It's not unreasonable, but I think it's a bit unnecessary. They're different programs. Why should they have to be at the same version?
  • by suso ( 153703 ) * on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:50PM (#11971216) Journal
    I would rather that they don't release something if they think there are issues or security problems with it. Mainly because people are still adopting these pieces of software. So there will be some people who will only download the latest version and may wait years before upgrading. Its better if they get stuck with what is considered to be the current best version.

    The rest of you that are aware and capabile of making upgrades, should do so of course.
    • by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:05PM (#11971353)
      The rest of you that are aware and capable of making upgrades, should do so of course.

      Of course, the problem is that the FF/TB upgrade mechanism is absolutely awful. There's no easy way to roll out the FF/TB duo on a Windows network. Worse, even for stand-alone use, the upgrade process just installs a new copy over top of the old. (redundant add/remove program item, desktop icons, and all!) As a reluctant part-time Windows admin, I can say with pretty good confidence that this is the one thing holding Firefox back from widespread use in businesses.

      Firefox team, please wake up and listen! An official method for centralized roll-out on Windows networks is an absolute must if you want to make a dent in IE usage in the business / corporate world.

      Thank goodness the other half of my work is Linux, where FF upgrades are as simple as "apt-get install mozilla-firefox"
      • by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <.ten.pbp. .ta. .maps.> on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:35PM (#11971560)
        Another absolute must is a triumphant calendar. :P

        Although, I suspect that you can just get users to upgrade by doing some Windows logon script voodoo. It works most of the time. :)
      • I can say with pretty good confidence that this is the one thing holding Firefox back from widespread use in businesses.

        There's a whole pile of things. Our idiot intraweb is totally dependent on things like <a href="file://ourserver/ourshare/our directory/our idiot doc file.doc">this</a>, which (shockingly!) do not work in firefox.
      • Having to do a "Run..." and type in a command line to launch Firefox's profile manager is completely unintuitive, and also completely unnecessary. If the profile manager can't be made accessible from within FF, then at the very least the installer should create a shortcut that will launch the profile manager. That would be good enough for me, it's not something I need very much. (I've made my own shortcut, but I really shouldn't have to.)

        Another nuisance is having to create and edit user.js by hand. Once a
      • by drewness ( 85694 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @10:48PM (#11971976) Homepage
        Firefox team, please wake up and listen! An official method for centralized roll-out on Windows networks is an absolute must if you want to make a dent in IE usage in the business / corporate world.

        Planned for 1.1 [zdnet.co.uk]. Scroll down the article a way and you will see that one of the things planned for 1.1 is an MSI installer so it plays better with corporate deployments.
        • MSI not only lets it "play" better in corporate deployments but it makes it easier to get support from Microsoft.

          Technically, if you've got 100% signed drivers and installed all of your software through MSI your Windows 200x machine shouldn't crash at all.

          Of course doing both of these things is hard to do, and it may in fact still crash. However, Microsoft will support you for free until the problem is solved - no matter what it takes.
        • Planned for 1.1.

          That is excellent news. All the more reason to support the project in any way you can to help make the June release date possible.

          In the meantime, it would be nice if there was some feature added to FF 1.0.x that would at least allow a local centralized update repository. This wouldn't help with large installations, but it would at least allow easier admin for small offices / workgroups while we wait for 1.1.
        • by Myen ( 734499 )
          Hmm, so they're doing a proper MSI now?

          Last I checked - it was a MSI file that launched the normal installer. Yeah, real useful. I'm hoping that's been changed; havn't been tracking the installer issues.
      • Actually, you CAN install it on a windows network and manage it.. see:
        http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/ [frontmotion.com]
      • another problem with the current install method is that if you install on top of a current install (so as not to lose themes and such) it adds a new item in your "add/remove programs" list. I currently have 7 installs of Firefox and 5 of Thunderbord (according to the list).
      • Of course, the problem is that the FF/TB upgrade mechanism is absolutely awful. There's no easy way to roll out the FF/TB duo on a Windows network. Worse, even for stand-alone use, the upgrade process just installs a new copy over top of the old. (redundant add/remove program item, desktop icons, and all!) As a reluctant part-time Windows admin, I can say with pretty good confidence that this is the one thing holding Firefox back from widespread use in businesses.

        I should also point out that during the

      • by N7DR ( 536428 )
        Worse, even for stand-alone use, the upgrade process just installs a new copy over top of the old. (redundant add/remove program item, desktop icons, and all!)

        Yes, I couldn't believe it when I was noodling around Add/Remove Programs on a Windows systems recently and saw a slew of FF/TB entries. I removed an old one, and promptly discovered that the current installation stopped working. I shifted the disk back five minutes with GoBack so no harm was done, but it did strike me as something that surely sho

  • I love Thunderbird for its simplicity and think it's a really good job - but I hope they fix a few annoying bugs, like having all my messages being mark 'unread' inexplicably.
    • I agree with the parent, but one feature that would be handy is the ability to create mailing lists from the address book. Yahoo Mail does this but Thunderbird doesn't seem to have the option.
      • Re:Hope it is soon! (Score:3, Informative)

        by shayne321 ( 106803 )
        It's there (at least in TB 1.0 and up, and Seamonkey 1.7 and up). Just go to your address book, and go to File->New and pick Mailing List. Seamonkey even has an icon at the top of the addressbook for New List.. Not sure if TB has this icon or not, I don't have it in front of me.
  • by akeyes ( 720106 ) <akeyes+slashdot AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:51PM (#11971234) Homepage
    You got the title right, the rest you forgot the second dot '1.0.1' not '1.01'
  • There is no 1.01 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:53PM (#11971246)
    "Ah, the joy of awkward numbering conventions!"

    You're telling me! So awkward that apparently the fact that it's 1.0.1 and not 1.01 went completely unnoticed. They are two VERY different numbering conventions.

    For example, 1.10 would indicate the 10th release of version 1, whereas 1.1.0 would indicate the magnitude of the changes in the release, not the number of releases.
  • by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:54PM (#11971255) Homepage Journal
    I'm holding our for Mozilla V 3. 1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859
  • by viscount ( 452242 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @08:59PM (#11971294)
    Release Candidates out now

    http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/00775 [mozillazine.org]9 .html

    Damn, those guys are quick.
  • Don't rush it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:02PM (#11971316)

    now the codebase is reasonably stable, i'd rather they be fixing bugs and perfecting the code than rushing it out the door like beancounter run jobs to meet a contract deadline
    obviously security patches are different but for general releases, make it right, keep it polished rather than looking like the software equivalent of a RiceBoy racer with a million things bolted on but none of them make it a better car
  • they've decided to address some additional issues

    good. since allowing the automated agent to upgrade me to ff 1.01, i've been having a crash a day. apparently this is not just happening to me, because the automated bug collector is having trouble connecting home when the crashes occur. i'v since turned the collector agent off.

    • I had the same problem, re-installed the thing, created a new profile, all that pain... still it crashed multiple time each day. In the end I scrapped adblocker (going randomly through everything to make it work again), since then my 1.0.1 has been running as smoothly as 1.0.0. Irritating.
  • I think FF is in desperate need of soome tweak'uns... Pop-ups are comming back with a force to be wreckoned with. Some sites (Won't mention what ones ;-) upload worms to my box through java, with nothing but Norton warning my that it was even being loaded. I even compared the sites with IE and FF; and IEs popup-blocker stops all while FF stops some. Alas.. popularity sucks. But it's still safer and more competent than IE. :-)
    • Some sites (Won't mention what ones ;-) upload worms to my box through java, with nothing but Norton warning my that it was even being loaded.

      Well, Big fucking deal there. Nobody asked you to install java, There's nothing Firefox can (and will) do with 3rd party plugins.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:40PM (#11971584)
      Pop-ups are comming back with a force to be wreckoned with. Some sites (Won't mention what ones ;-) upload worms to my box through java, with nothing but Norton warning my that it was even being loaded. I even compared the sites with IE and FF; and IEs popup-blocker stops all while FF stops some.

      Please mention which ones, as an AC if you don't want people to know where you went. You see, if you don't mention which ones, it looks like you're spreading FUD. You see, I'VE never had that happen to me (even browsing dodgy pr0n sites), and I'VE not seen a popup since I switched to Firefox.

      So right now, we have your anecdotes disagreeing with my experience, and I'm calling you a liar.

      If you'd care to link to one of these sites where IE allegedly blocks popups better than Firefox, or where Firefox allegedly allows your computer to be infected with a worm without so much as a warning, then maybe people would have some incentive to believe you, sort of thing?
    • by bunratty ( 545641 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @12:01AM (#11972395)
      Try this tip shamelessly stolen from adot's notblog [mozillazine.org] (March 4, 2005 entry):

      To block pop-ups from plugins, open your Firefox 1.0 or 1.0.1 browser, type about:config in the address field. Right-click in the resulting config page somewhere and select New -> Interger. Type privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins in the resulting dialog, hit OK, type 2 in the next dialog and you're all set.

      This pref can actually take three values:
      0: open allowed
      1: the opened windows are treated as popups, but they're allowed to open (we limit the number of these types of popups)
      2: the window is a popup, block it

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:12PM (#11971410)
    "This release goes up to 1.02. That's one more, innit?"

    "Why don't they just put the newer improvements and call it 1.01?"

    (blank stare) "This release goes up to 1.02."
  • Version 3.0 (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:16PM (#11971437)
    If they want to make it comparable to a genuine, working Microsoft product, they should release the next one as Version 3.0.

    And they can follow that with Version 6.0.

  • Thunderbird (Score:2, Funny)

    by WaldoXX ( 803727 )
    Most of us can live with out Thunderbird 1.01 and
    wait for 1.02 but they better not delay on
    FireFox with the new Gecko 1.8 engine!!@!!#@! :P
  • by menace3society ( 768451 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:21PM (#11971469)
    It used to be, Mozilla was one of the more "reputable" open source projects. I'm not trying to flame anyone here, but it sounds like they've had a pretty rough week. Coupled with the announcement to cancel future releases of the Mozilla suite and the announcements abotu IE7, this could tarnish Mozilla's reputation. Obviously, normal projects miss deadlines and drop releases with large flaws all the time. But Open Source being what it is, when it has these kinds of problems they tend to be more high-profile. Hopefully everyone will look past this and continue to recognize that the Mozilla tools beat the pants off of Microsoft's.
    • I would like to chastize MozillaZine for choosing such a sensationalist headline. "Mozilla Cancels xxxxxx!!1!" when this really isn't a big deal. At all.

      I used to have some tinfoil hat conspiracy theory in place of this, but now that I see that the MozillaZine article uses the word "Cancelled," I can see that it's just an isolated case of sensationalism.

      Yeah, this is just a strong case of turbulence. Momentum needs to be regained.
  • by standsolid ( 619377 ) <kenny@nOspaM.standsolid.com> on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:25PM (#11971494) Homepage
    They can avoid this different-version numbering nonsense if they finally just integrate the FireFox Browser, Thunderbird Mail and Sunbird Calendar into one integrated cohesive suite.

    That would be flippin' sweet!
  • update agent (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mslinux ( 570958 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @09:38PM (#11971577)
    why the hell can't the update agent handle these fixes? why do user have to manually upgrade when a new security threat is found? IE beats the hell out of FF when it comes to patching.
    • Re:update agent (Score:3, Informative)

      by MikeBabcock ( 65886 )
      That would explain why the little green arrow showed up in my browser one day and I clicked it and it upgraded me.

      Jeez, I thought that was awfully difficult compared to the 5 clicks I go through on Windows Update.
  • vcard? (Score:2, Funny)

    by ErisCalmsme ( 212887 )
    I'm still waiting for thunderbird to support vcard =/ Maybe one day http://vcard.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org] will have some better news than " I had made some good progress long ago, but subsequently lost all the code in an accident, before having checked it in. "
  • by Samah ( 729132 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @11:03PM (#11972074)
    ... the story title totally misleads people into thinking that Thunderbird itself has been dropped.
    Perhaps a better title would be:
    "Thunderbird 1.0.1 dropped, 1.0.2 on the way"
    or
    "Thunderbird postponed to version 1.0.2"

    Just a thought...

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