Mozilla 基金會 2005 年三月 10 號新聞稿

In 2003 we announced our intention to shift development focus from the integrated Mozilla Application Suite (commonly referred to as "Seamonkey") to a new generation of applications — the Mozilla Firefox browser and the Mozilla Thunderbird mail and news client. That shift in focus occurred almost immediately, as the Mozilla Foundation was formed and we hired the lead developers for Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. At that time we also stated our intention to maintain a long-lived, stable 1.7.x version of Seamonkey. We noted that a number of commercial distributors ship Seamonkey and will need the means to maintain it for their customers. There is also a user and developer base that is fond of Seamonkey and would like to maintain it. We have continued with this maintenance plan as well, with a 1.7.6 release scheduled for the next few weeks.

於 2003 年我們宣佈我們意圖要把開發重點從 Mozilla 整合應用軟體 (專案名稱為 "Seamonkey") 轉移到新一代的應用程式 — Mozilla Firefox 瀏覽器與 Mozilla Thunderbird 郵件與新聞群組程式。 這注意力的轉移幾乎馬上隨著 Mozilla 基金會的成立與 Mozilla Firefox 與 Mozilla Thunderbird 的首要開發者的聘請而發生。在當時，我們也聲明我們對維護一個長命的，穩定的 1.7.x Seamonkey 版本的意圖。我們指出有些商業廠商有出 Seamonkey，並為了它們顧客需要有途徑維護 Seamonkey。另外，有愛好 Seamonkey 的開法者與用戶群願意維護它。我們持續著這個維護計劃，並於下幾週計劃釋出 1.7.6 版。

In the last few months we have also been releasing a series of 1.8 alpha and beta releases. The goal of these releases has been to test the changes to the back-end aspects of our codebase. Most users are familiar only with the "front-end" of our code -- the actual end user applications that provide browsing and mail functionality. But underneath this layer of code is a deep, complex layer of infrastructure that makes things work behind the scenes. There's no reason for end users to be aware of this foundation, just as most of us aren't aware of the details of the foundation of the skyscrapers we visit. But it is critical, and continued development and testing of this layer is vital to keeping our applications healthy.

在上幾個月我們並且有釋出一系列的 1.8 alpha 與 beta 版本。這些釋出的目的是為了要測試我們 codebase 後端 (back-end) 方面的改變。大部份用戶只了解到我們源碼的前端 (front-end)，也就是提供瀏覽與郵件功能的應用程式。但是在這些源碼下的深層有複雜的基建 (infrastructure) 運作著。用戶沒有理由要知道這底基，就如我們去高樓大廈不需要知道它地基的細節。但是，它非常的重要，對這一層的持續開發與測試對維持我們應用程式的健康極為的重要。

The ongoing alpha and beta releases of Seamonkey 1.8 have suggested that the Mozilla Foundation itself will be creating a 1.8 final release. This is not our plan. The 1.8 releases have been for testing our backend. We intend that the 1.7.x line of releases will be the last long-lived, maintained versions released by the Mozilla Foundation. There is no doubt that the series of 1.8 alpha and beta releases have caused some confusion about whether there would be a 1.8 product released by the Mozilla Foundation. In addition, a set of people have done a non-trivial amount of work on 1.8 features, thinking this would be part of an official Mozilla Foundation release. This has been a major error on our part. These contributors have reason to be unhappy with us. We can only apologize, at the same time recognizing that apologies only go so far and can't fix the error.

Seamonkey 1.8 alpha 與 beta 版的持續釋出給大家以為 Mozilla 基金會將會建立一個 1.8 版。這不是我們的計劃。

Our plan for the Seamonkey suite is as follows:

1. The 1.7.x line will be the last set of Seamonkey products released and maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation will provide infrastructure for those interested in working on the 1.7.x releases, which we expect will include a number of vendors who provide these products to their customers. We've committed to support the 1.7 branch some time ago. If we ship 1.8 we'll need to support that as well, and we just can't manage supporting that many versions as well as Firefox and Thunderbird releases.
2. The Mozilla Foundation will provide infrastructure support (CVS access, bugzilla, development tools, etc) for community members who wish to continue to develop Seamonkey. This community group may wish to do formal releases of Seamonkey, much as the Sunbird and Minimo developers do. We support this. We probably won't use the same naming conventions, as we need to be clear that this is not a Mozilla Foundation product release.
3. Boris Zbarsky has posted an open letter to the Mozilla Foundation signed by a set of interested parties, laying out a community transition plan. We support this plan and will work with interested parties to figure out strategy. There will undoubtedly be some implementation details to be worked out (e.g., can we actually use Seamonkey as a formal trademark, how do we work the tinderbox machines, etc.).

The dedication to the product, the initiative of the developers and the proposal of the transition plan as a solution are all hallmarks of the Mozilla community. We support this effort completely.