On Mon, 11 Oct 2010, Russ Allbery wrote:
Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <[email protected]> writes:
I guess so, although I don't personally even use unstable myself for the
aforementioned reasons. However, unstable is used as the "desktop"
version of Debian by a large number of users, and the awkward
development it gets during freeze time is not really fixed by
experimental.
The *real* problem is that labelling Firefox 3.6 as "experimental" is
downright silly.
Hm, okay. I guess I'm not feeling particularly inspired to do any work
based on that reaction. Names are pretty arbitrary, and having the name
be what you consider to be the most urgent problem makes me think this
isn't really an issue. It's not Firefox 3.6 that's experimental,
regardless; it's at most the *Debian packaging* of it, which is a distinct
entity.
I can see the argument of people who'd like to have new software in
unstable during the freeze period since they're not very interested in the
stable release, and that's come up before (such as in the CUT
discussions), but as with your note above, this seems most often to be an
argument made theoretically by people who aren't personally having
significant issues.
I'm a Debian desktop user who runs Iceweasel from Debian, and I have an
"issue" which is that:
* Firefox 3.5-based browsers crash more often than 3.6.4 and above. See
also
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/06/22/firefox-3-6-4-with-crash-protection-now-available/
* Extensions get updated by upstream, and I can't install the most recent
versions because they're not compatible with my browser.
* Firefox 3.6 has faster JavaScript, which is the difference between this
page being usable, and it not: http://openhatch.org/people/. (Admittedly
that's a site under my control, so I can improve it; but there are surely
other such pages.)
And so on.
We're going to ship the crashier (since plugins are in-process) 3.5.x
Firefox code to the millions/thousands/whatevers of Debian users in
squeeze, even though we could have possibly shipped 3.6. That's because of
the freeze, and surely lots of complex issues relating to xulrunner
dependencies. But it would be less of a big deal if the freeze lasted less
time.
If I feel this strongly, I should probably join the Mozilla applications
packaging team. I may yet do that. Actually, I guess I should do that
right now.
http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianMozAppsTeam?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=mozilla+team&titlesearch=Titles
returns no results...
http://packages.debian.org/experimental/iceweasel indicates that (1) I can
have Fx 3.6 (sweet, I'll install that right now) and (2) that
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-mozilla-maintainers is
the list to join.
I've now joined it. If anyone else wants to come there with me, I bet we
can make the Mozilla apps teams' lives better. (-:
Also, I realize I can help the freeze be shorter -- fix a release-critical
bug. I'll remember to keep that on the queue.
(This email is now just me rambling, not me having a point. I think.)
-- Asheesh.
--
Many pages make a thick book.
