Mozilla's Future: Suite or not???

[SecretMethod70]

Alright, as far as I understood for quite some time, the Mozilla suite was to stop being developed and the main focus was supposed to shift to Firebird and Thunderbird as the primary applications of the Mozilla Foundation. When Mozilla 1.5 was released as a suite, it appeared as though it was supposed to be the last suite version released and that the next release was to be when Firebird officially took over.

Then Mozilla 1.6 came out and I thought to myself "ok, well I guess Firebird just isn't ready yet."

Then I read this:

http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.6/addons.html

Mozilla Calendar, currently in alpha testing but very usable, will be a standards-based calendaring solution, and the sixth member of the Mozilla suite of applications.

Does anyone know what's going on? I mean the suite is nice and all and there are people that obviously use it and appreciate it, but I was looking forward to seeing Firebird get more attention and its development speed up a little.

Now I'm just confused. Is Mozilla staying a suite now or what??

[JStrider]

yah... i dunno... i definently prefer the seperate programs to the suite...

[sailor]

I dont know. Personally, I also prefer the seperate applications, but if they want to continue to work on the suite some, that is fine too.

[Latch]

I'm with these guys. The seperate applications are good.

I'm guessing there are people out there who like the suite though... or maybe it has had more popularity than they thought it would.. so it continues.

[SecretMethod70]

Alright, when I posted this this morning I had a lot of stuff to do so I didn't have a chance to look deeper into Mozilla's site for answers.

Now I did.

According to the development <a href="http://mozilla.org/roadmap.html">roadmap</a> which I remember having read before, they plan to:

# Focus development efforts on the new standalone applications: the browser currently code-named Mozilla Firebird, the Mozilla Thunderbird mail/news application, and standalone composer and other apps based on the the new XUL toolkit used by Firebird and Thunderbird. We aim to make Mozilla Firebird and Thunderbird our premier products.

Now, this is what I remember having read before. What I either missed, or was not there when I first read it was the point after that:

# Updated: Maintain the SeaMonkey application suite, currently built by default, for enterprises and other organizations with large existing Mozilla deployments. SeaMonkey remains an important product for many customers.

So I guess that's the answer. (In case you don't know, Seamonkey is the name for the Mozilla Suite just like Firebird is the name for Mozilla Browser.) Now if I could only find the justification for the fact that I think Firebird has been at 0.7 since Seamonkey 1.4. THAT I still don't udnerstand.

[Redlemon]

FB 0.8 is "right around the corner". There's only one "blocking" bug, although there are two other bugs that most people would also consider to be blockers. This was the first time in quite a while that FB and the Suite weren't released simultaneously, and I think that's a good thing.

There were too many people who liked the suite, but I can't imagine why.

[Silvy]

Isn't the suite a combination of Firebird, Thunderbird and a few others mixed in for good measure?
In that case Firebird and Thunderbird are developed as seperate yet combine-able apps with their own development team, while the suit has a third team completing the lot?

Edit: I stand corrected by SM70's post below...

[SecretMethod70]

No, Firebird and Thunderbird are seperate from the Suite's version of Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail.

For example: <a href="http://mozilla.org/roadmap/phoenix-advantages.html">Why Phoenix (now Firebird) is better than the Suite's browser</a>

[meanSpleen]

I've been waiting for a Beta release (non-alpha) of Sunbird for months. Its not that I NEED a calender, but I just want to be using it and be able to say, "HEY FOO I"M 1337 COS I USED IT FURST".

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I actually still like the Suite, and use it from time to time. Its nice to know that everything is more or less integrated. This is usually on the weekends, when I leave the laptop on for 72 hours, but whatever.

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For some reason, I can't get FIrebird to work with the -turbo tag. I mean, it starts, but it doesn't stay in the statusbar thing when i close it. No problem though, because it does load quickly (more or less)

[Johnny Rotten]

Originally posted by SecretMethod70
No, Firebird and Thunderbird are seperate from the Suite's version of Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail.

For example: <a href="http://mozilla.org/roadmap/phoenix-advantages.html">Why Phoenix (now Firebird) is better than the Suite's browser</a>

All the points in that link are valid, IMO, but the size difference is a little sketchy because they're comparing a browser to an entire suite. They ought to compare the number of lines of code for the browsers themselves.