Mozilla Suite : FAQs : Status

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Mozilla Suite code development and the SeaMonkey project

The 1.7 release of the Mozilla Suite is the last major release as an official Mozilla Foundation product. It will be maintained with 1.7.x version releases to fix known security problems or other critical issues but there will be no official Mozilla Suite 1.8 release. This will enable the Foundation to devote its resources to the standalone Firefox and Thunderbird applications.

Although official development has ceased, the Suite will continue to evolve as a community-led project and will receive substantial support from the Foundation. In particular, the development community will still use mozilla.org's webtools such as CVS, LXR and Bugzilla, and Foundation members have provided significant advice to the community on how to organise successful releases of a Gecko-based application suite. The project will be "driven" by members of the community who will be responsible for maintaining code, dictating the release schedule and performing QA on the final releases. More information on the organisational structure that has developed to maintain the suite and manage future releases is on the SeaMonkey homepage of the mozilla.org wiki.

Since this community-led project does not result in an official Mozilla Foundation product, it was agreed that the name and version number of the new release must change, as it is not possible to use the "Mozilla" trademark on an unofficial product. The name "SeaMonkey" was chosen, after the longtime codename of the Mozilla Suite. This new release of the application suite, based on Mozilla Suite 1.8 code, is named "SeaMonkey 1.0" and was released on January 30, 2006.

Differences between the Mozilla Suite and SeaMonkey

Despite the name change, SeaMonkey 1.0 will feel very familiar to Mozilla Suite users, but it will incorporate numerous new features, UI improvements, and bugfixes. Some of these will be listed in the release notes, available through the SeaMonkey project page.


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"Mozilla Suite" vs. "SeaMonkey" in Knowledge Base articles

Contributors to this Knowledge Base are in the process of trying to formulate a scheme for how best to refer to the Mozilla Suite and SeaMonkey in Knowledge Base articles and categorize the articles related to each. Until that scheme is worked out and eventually implemented, you may find one or both names used in different articles. For the time being, it is generally safe to assume that all references to "Mozilla Suite" also apply to "SeaMonkey".

In some articles, especially those written for Thunderbird, there may be a note stating that the article "also applies to Mozilla Suite / SeaMonkey". This could mean that the article applies to both products (most likely) or perhaps only to SeaMonkey (e.g., due to new features in SeaMonkey that are lacking in the Mozilla Suite). Article writers often don't know the specific differences between Mozilla Suite and SeaMonkey and thus use the shorthand "Mozilla Suite / SeaMonkey" note to flag articles that might be of interest to Mozilla Suite and/or SeaMonkey users.

See also

External links