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Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

bugs.debian.org

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Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#61

Post by scrollaway »

zanny wrote: post #42
dmm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Release every 2 weeks like clockwork. Which means exciting new regressions every two weeks! When I used wine it was definitely the case that certain applications(games) worked better with specific wine versions so a continuous release cycle could result in breaking a working application. That's something users of stable are trying to avoid. If a user wants the latest version of a package you can always install it m…

Parent is actually wrong - Wine releases with the Gnome cycle, where even releases are stable and odd ones are unstable. Debian should technically be shipping both versions according to upstream release cadences - people who want stable use 1.8 right now, and people who want latest features use 1.9.

In what way am I wrong? Wine releases are in fact every two weeks with a stable release once in a while. How is it relevant that stable are even and unstable are odd?

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#62

Post by jhasse »

moron4hire wrote: post #48
regularfry wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of a distribution is to provide a complete, working system. It's not just a collection of independent components, it's curated such that the whole is coherent.

So the shit MS got blasted for: bundling IE with Windows.

Doesn't matter, Debian hasn't a monopoly.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#63

Post by yebyen »

moron4hire wrote: post #48
regularfry wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of a distribution is to provide a complete, working system. It's not just a collection of independent components, it's curated such that the whole is coherent.

So the shit MS got blasted for: bundling IE with Windows.

Not even remotely comparable. Firefox is not a product of Debian, and Debian is not nor ever has been in a "monopoly" position with respect to any market.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#64

Post by spdustin »

oliwarner wrote: post #39
chrisan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with whatever bug tracker they use, but shouldn't this be the default such that a user doesn't have to make this mental note?

Perhaps I'm being unfair —because I know how the sausage is made— but if it looks like it's generated by Perl (clunky late-90s design, obvious interactive parts, filter, logins, etc) it probably scales like a squirrel carrying watermelons. (One at a time is okay.) Debian should definitely do more to stop this from happening but this isn't the first time a HN link to a clunky old webapp has taken it down.

I'm going to have to ask: is "scales like a squirrel carrying watermelons" your own material, or is that a saying invented somewhere else? The imagery is just so apt, the etymology of the phrase is suddenly piquing my curiosity.

EDIT: I wasn't joking around, people. Don't you find the etymology of such colorful phrasing to be interesting?

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#65

Post by Ace17 »

moron4hire wrote: post #22
daemin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package Managers. In Debian the package manager (and repositories) is the app store.

This is, to me, a point against package managers. Little Windows universe secret: Installers aren't that bad.

There's no such thing as downloading a random installer from a random website, and then running it with administrative priviledges!

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#66

Post by scrollaway »

icebraining wrote: post #51
scrollaway wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian implements the comical definition of Bureaucracy really well. Missing the forest for the trees and thinking that every single piece of software is built and released the same way. For a Linux distro that has been around so long, it's mind boggling they still don't understand that. Wine used to have the same problem - Wine's cycle had the Chrome-like cycle before Chrome even existed. Release every 2 weeks like…

I think this is a misunderstanding of the goals of Debian Stable. The purpose is not to get a stable release of each upstream project and build a release from those. The goal is to get any release of each upstream project, test it for a few months to ensure there are no show-stopping bugs and to document the known ones, and then freeze it. The goal is not to ensure lack of bugs, it's to ensure stability , that is, th…

The problem then is when this trickles down to projects like Ubuntu. For years, Ubuntu (the desktop distro) had Wine 1.0 as its only version of Wine, when there were something like 40 new development releases of it already available. This caused hundreds upon hundreds of bug reports and user frustrations for no good reason - issues were already fixed in most recent versions of Wine.

I used to do triaging for Wine and I can't tell you how depressing that was, the amount of time wasted by these distro policies.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#67

Post by rlonstein »

oliwarner wrote: post #39
chrisan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with whatever bug tracker they use, but shouldn't this be the default such that a user doesn't have to make this mental note?

Perhaps I'm being unfair —because I know how the sausage is made— but if it looks like it's generated by Perl (clunky late-90s design, obvious interactive parts, filter, logins, etc) it probably scales like a squirrel carrying watermelons. (One at a time is okay.) Debian should definitely do more to stop this from happening but this isn't the first time a HN link to a clunky old webapp has taken it down.

  > Perhaps I'm being unfair
    ...
  > Debian should definitely do more to stop this from
  > happening but this isn't the first time a HN link
  > to a clunky old webapp has taken it down.
Shouldn't you donate your time and effort?

I haven't but I'm also not ungrateful and complaining about it.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#68

Post by subway »

moron4hire wrote: post #45
Peaker wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After using apt-get for everything, going back to manually finding an (untrusted) executable, running it, hitting a bunch of next buttons -- seems insane. It is quite bad. External dependencies are also nearly impractical this way, so all installers tend to embed their universe of dependencies, making for an even worse experience.

Untrusted by whom? It's the same vendor whether it comes from their site or the package repository. And maybe people include way too many dependencies in their projects if it's too much to manage manually. Also, installers are perfectly capable of managing dependencies.

It's the same vendor whether it comes from their site or the package repository.

Prove it.

The package manager allows you to cryptographically verify the binary was inspected by somebody you trust (the package maintainers). While windows has added code-signing/verification capabilities, many installers are unsigned, and those which are signed don't have a useful trust anchor.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#69

Post by vermontdevil »

steveklabnik wrote: post #23
moron4hire wrote: post #16

I don't understand why Debian has anything to do with Firefox. Why does the operating system have any say on what applications get released and how often? Isn't this the whole point of using free, open source software? To be able to choose your own components? Why do we need Debian bundling Firefox?

Debian user and Mozilla employee who uses Iceweasel here. I work on Rust, not Firefox though. > Why does the operating system have any say on what applications get released > and how often? This has to do with the interaction between the original authors and the distribution itself. Let's go through an example: 1. I, Steve, write some bit of software, libfoo, and host it on my GitHub page. 2. Debian users would like…

Yep. Thanks for this. Painted a great pic in my mind about the issue/process here.

Re: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

#70

Post by geofft »

kbenson wrote: post #60
tonyarkles wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahhhhhh, I've always wondered about clauses like that with the distribution of software compilations. For example, I can buy a Debian boxed set from here: http://www.jbox.ca/product-category/computers-tablets/softwa... or any of the other distributors: https://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/ . I think a clause like that would prevent them from selling those.

I'm fairly sure when you are buying physical copies of Linux distributions you are buying the service of compiling and copying it and providing physical media, the box, any manuals, etc. The source code at a minimum must be made freely available to others. That is, they aren't charging for the code delivered, but the delivery itself and the physical media.

You're permitted (under both the GPL and the DFSG) to restrict who you make the code available to, and to charge them for it. The only requirement is that the recipient have the right to further redistribute the sources, without being compelled to restrict who they distribute it to, or being compelled to charge for it.

That is, it is entirely legitimate and legal for me to make a Debian derivative where the only means of distribution is that I charge you $30/month for a CD of my distribution (including source to any patches I apply), and I don't distribute it otherwise. I just have to give you the right to rip the CD and put it online for free, if you so choose.

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