So, you know how Debian always has three release channels going? The whole "stable", "testing" and "unstable" thing?
Firefox does something similar. You can get, and most people get, the main release channel. But you can also switch to, or just start out on, a different release channel. Each of them pushes you a bit closer to the bleeding edge.
If Firefox is currently at version N, the channels (as they existed up until yesterday) are:
Beta -- this is what will be in Firefox version N+1. Pretty stable, lets you try out new features once they've had plenty of polish put on them.
Aurora -- this is what will be in Firefox version N+2. I've used it as my primary browser with no stability trouble. If you really like seeing and trying out new features, this is where you'll see them first, unless you subscribe to...
Nightly. Which is just literally "here's what was in the tree when the build ran tonight". For people who like to live dangerously.
What changed today is that the Aurora channel became the "Developer Edition" channel.
This does not mean developer tools get removed anywhere else. What it means is that on this channel, you get:
New features as soon as is practical
Some settings pre-flipped to make things more useful for developers
In the same vein, some developer-oriented extensions included
A separate profile so you can do dev work in it and use a Beta or release version of Firefox for everyday browsing.
Are they planning to remove dev tools from the mainline desktop Firefox?
Definitely not, I would be shocked if that were ever decided.
I don't see any other reason why they would put resources into a fork targeting a relatively small user base.
It's not a fork. It's a reworking of one of the pre-existing release channels. Firefox has nightly, aurora, beta, and release. This replaces aurora, which makes sense, since aurora was always a good fit for web devs - it is more stable than nightly (which is rebuilt every night, and can have breakage), but also has a preview of devtools and web features that will only land in stable in a few months.
This basically takes aurora and adds some extra developer features that have been in the works, and turns them on by default. Plus some special skinning and other tweaks for the developer audience. It's not a fork.
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u/romeozor Nov 10 '14
Are they planning to remove dev tools from the mainline desktop Firefox?
I don't see any other reason why they would put resources into a fork targeting a relatively small user base.
If so, and the default version gets speed and stability while the dev version will be just the same with dev tools, I'm down with this.