Indistinguishable from Jesse

Following Winamp, Mozilla plans to adopt Fibonacci version numbers for Firefox and Thunderbird. The move is intended to help Firefox catch up with Internet Explorer, currently at version 6, and Opera, currently at version 9.

Firefox's previous version numbers, 1 and 1.5, as well as the versions currently being worked on, 2 and 3, fit into the new scheme perfectly. Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich promised to update the Mozilla Roadmap as soon as he finishes implementing JavaScript 1.7 and finalizing the version number for what was previously planned as JavaScript 2.

Firefox user interface designer Mike Beltzner said "Firefox is all about an intuitive and natural user interface, and the Fibonacci sequence is a perfect expression of nature's expression of order and beauty."

"It's got nothing at all to do with horning on on Dan Brown's success with the Da Vinci Code," added Beltzner.

Apple declined to comment as to whether Safari, currently at version 2, would follow. It did, however, threaten to sue a rumor site editor who wrote that Apple would use only powers of two as Safari version numbers.

Firefox 2, which adds spell-checking and scam protection, is slated for a September 2006 release. Firefox 3, which will add a new bookmark system and bring Acid 2 compliance, is planned for a mid-2007 release. Specific plans for Firefox 5 have not yet been announced.

Joost de Valk (aka AlthA) is hosting a CSS3 contest this month. One way to enter is to submit a patch adding a CSS3 feature to Gecko (Firefox) or WebKit (Safari), and get it checked in. For CSS3 features whose specifications are still subject to change, implementations that use a browser prefix (e.g. "-moz-") are acceptable.

Today's Mac OS X security update includes a fix for a Safari/WebKit security hole I reported :)

Description: A maliciously-crafted HTML document could cause a previously deallocated object to be accessed. This may lead to an application crash or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by properly handling such documents. Credit to Jesse Ruderman of Mozilla Corporation for reporting this issue.

The irc.mozilla.org quote database, which I helped start, now has over 1000 quotes! Coincidentally, the 1000th quote happens to contain the number 1000.