A developer recently suggested in an open discussion group that Mozilla could drop the release cycle of Firefox from six to five weeks. This was greeted with a response from Mozilla Firefox project manager Christian Legnitto confirming that Mozilla “will absolutely shorten” the cycle, but not “soon”. The discussion of this topic is somewhat surprising as Mozilla is still dealing with problems in its current release cycle and has not really solved the issue of longer enterprise release cycles. This new discussion may not be the best way to calm enterprise users.

As with so many Firefox product ideas, this pitch created its own dynamic in which other Mozilla developers suggested that a release cycle of six weeks is two short and additional time for each release may be necessary. Later in the discussion, Legnitto wrote that Mozilla is sticking with the six-week-release cycle “for the foreseeable future.” Of course, there was no definite statement and since Mozilla considers its public discussion groups an environment in which anyone can say anything, no matter of rank and content, there is no way to now say for certain whether the release process will change or not. The official Mozilla version is that six weeks is the status quo, but we know that there are discussions in the background and the release process may change as a result at some point.

Mozilla’s communication practices have become somewhat difficult to understand as statements from Mozilla officials in these developer groups often change direction depending on the public reaction to them. What’s more, officials often say their statements are just personal opinions that should not be taken as fact. As a result, reports on developer discussions can be misleading, Mozilla says. However, in this case, the takeaway is that there is a discussion about the release cycle time frame and the current model is apparently not set in stone, which may be worrisome for enterprises that are using Firefox and are struggling with the current six-week release cycle.