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Mozilla has set an aggressive schedule for the next version of Firefox, slating the release of Firefox 5 for June 21.

If it meets that schedule, Mozilla could crank out Firefox 6 just two months later.

Mozilla has shifted to a faster-paced development cycle where it adds new features as it goes to a series of versions -- dubbed nightly, aurora, beta and Firefox -- each of which feeds into the next-most-stable build until a polished edition is released.

The change is a major shift for the open-source company, which has been locked into a much longer schedule. Firefox 4, for example, was in development for over a year, while Firefox 3.6 took about the same amount of time to finish.

 Google uses a similar process to continually feed features to Chrome, relying on a four-channel line of development: nightly, dev, beta and stable. The result is a new version of Chrome every six to eight weeks.

According to information posted on Mozilla's site, its new, faster development will match Google's.

Mozilla is currently planning a truncated schedule for Firefox 5, which should ship June 21. To meet that deadline, Firefox 5 has to hit the "aurora" channel April 12 and reach beta by May 17.

With Firefox 5 done, Mozilla will shift to a standard 18-week schedule that will put Firefox 6's release around mid-August.

Computerworld has the details HERE!