A critical bug in Free Software gets fixed

Thursday, March 24th, 2005

Ever wanted to know the life of a critical bug in a Free Software application? Some days ago a bug was discovered in FireFox’s (or rather the complete Mozilla Suite) GIF handling code.

Life line:

• 2005-03-10 07:56 PST: The bug was reported
• 2005-03-10 12:52 PST: (5 hours later) The bug is confirmed.
• 2005-03-10 18:36 PST: (5.5 hours later) A fix is available.
• 2005-03-11 17:39 PST: (1 day later) The fix has been applied and when two more, unrelated, bugs are fixed the new version can be released.
• 2005-03-23: The new version with the bugfix is released.

That’s only one day for a complete fix to be applied and thirteen days before that fix reaches your home. Now, thirteen days may seem like a long time, but do take in account the fact that vendors usually request a little time before announcing the bug and releasing the new version so they too can prepare new releases of their packaged versions of Firefox.

I’m amazed at the speed and effectiveness of the communications within the FireFox/Mozilla team.