The Mozilla Foundation may be ending development of its application suite, but the open-source combination of a Web browser, e-mail client and Web-authoring tool appears likely to continue with the help of its friends. Mozilla this week changed development course with the suite, announcing that it no longer plans to release Mozilla 1.8 despite earlier betas of the update. Instead, it will end suite development with the current Version 1.7 line and instead focus on its standalone Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client.
While the foundation is retiring the official Mozilla suite, it is open to helping developers in the Mozilla community sustain it on their own. As part of a Mozilla suite transition plan posted online this week, the Mountain View, Calif.-based foundation vowed to "provide infrastructure support ... for community members who wish to continue to develop Seamonkey." That support would provide open-source developers with access to Mozilla"s hosted development process, such as its Bugzilla bug-reporting system and online development tools, foundation president Mitchell Baker told eWEEK.com on Friday.