On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 6:59 PM Gordon Messmer gordon.messmer@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/19/20 9:05 PM, Mark Mielke wrote:
As you can see from the above timeline - if CentOS 7 was run according to the CentOS 8 Stream model, CentOS would have received the*beta* version of Firefox ESR 78.2, while if it had followed the CentOS 7 and CentOS 8 model, CentOS would have received the*production* version of Firefox ESR 78.3.
Why do you think Firefox 78.2 was a beta release?
"Beta" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta :
"Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. Software in the beta stage is also known as betaware.[6] A Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs.[7] Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, speed or performance issues, and may still cause crashes or data loss. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing. The process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. Software beta releases can either be public or private, depending on whether they are openly available or only available to a limited audience. Beta version software is often useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization and to prospective customers. Some developers refer to this stage as a preview, preview release, prototype, technical preview / technology preview (TP),[8] or early access. Since the introduction of Windows 8, Microsoft has called pre-release software a preview rather than beta. All pre-release builds released through the Windows Insider Program launched in 2014 are termed "Insider Preview builds". "beta" may also indicate something more like a release candidate, or as a form of time-limited demo, or marketing technique.[9]
Beta testers are people who actively report issues of beta software. They are usually customers or representatives of prospective customers of the organization that develops the software. Beta testers tend to volunteer their services free of charge but often receive versions of the product they test, discounts on the release version, or other incentives."
Firefox ESR 78.2 release notes, as I already quoted from https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/enterprise/2020-August/002462.html :
"This is the final scheduled release of the ESR 68.x branch. With the release of 78.3.0esr in September, we will begin offering automatic updates from earlier ESR versions to the 78.x branch. We recommend that organizations use this opportunity to test this new version in their environment ahead of the ESR68 End Of Life."
Firefox ESR has had this process for several ESR releases at this point. Everybody who is part of the process knows what to expect. Internally to our company, we also began testing with the release of Firefox ESR 78.0, 78.1, and 78.2, so we could provide feedback into 78.3, which was the version that was pushed out broadly.
I don't know if we are playing word games here - or if you truly believe it is a responsible choice to broadly deploy an early access version to a set of "Enterprise" customers. I'll use whatever word you want, as long as we agree that CentOS 8 Stream is for people who are *developing* CentOS. It is not for "Enterprise production deployments". I will comment further on another one of your posts.
-- Mark Mielke mark.mielke@gmail.com