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OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

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Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>utter lack of any sign of trying to mitigate these problems (e.g., fuzzing, or even merely attempting to identify security fixes in Firefox that may warrant backporting), And here's where you show you're making it up and haven't even looked at a Pale Moon release notes, http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml

I don't read release notes, I read the commits and the patches themselves. Actually, I did check after posting, and they appear to do the bare minimum--port the posted CVEs, which won't even account for all the security bugs. There are definitely several commits I've seen them do where they specifically revert changes that rewrite functionality to be safer, but don't actually fix any specific known security flaw. If…

It's hard for me to make sense of what you're saying.

1. You don't seem to think the Pale Moon has value, nor that it should be used.

2. You say you don't read their release notes--which makes sense if you don't think it's worthy.

However:

3. You say you do spend time reading their patches--which doesn't make sense if you don't think it's worthy.

4. Their release notes frequently mention "defense-in-depth" patches which are their own work, not, as you put it, to "randomly backport patches purely to try to keep somewhat up-to-date"--which conflicts with your claims about their work.

So you say you read their patches, yet you don't appear to read all of them. And you say you don't read their release notes, yet you speak as if you have comprehensive knowledge of their work.

Then you say something that's supposed to be scary, but then you say that it might not actually be scary, and you won't tell us whether it actually is.

So, regardless of whether Pale Moon is valuable or useful or secure to any degree, isn't your comment a textbook example of FUD? What's your purpose here?

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#232
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, suppose someone backporting a Rust update runs a big batch of tests and finds, say, two dozen packages with regressions. Now what? Spend two weeks investigating all the test failures? Backporting updates to these packages as well, all while users are patiently waiting for their Firefox to have its zero‐day fixed? Are the tests even correct? Were they failing before and nobody noticed? And all this to only get a…

> Okay, suppose someone backporting a Rust update runs a big batch of tests and finds, say, two dozen packages with regressions. > Now what? > Spend two weeks investigating all the test failures? Backporting updates to these packages as well, all while users are patiently waiting for their Firefox to have its zero‐day fixed? Are the tests even correct? Were they failing before and nobody noticed? Yes, people do exact…

The OpenBSD port for Rust 1.39 - the long awaited async/await release - wasn't available for several (6?) weeks. The reason for this was the maintainer is a single person with a complex setup, trying to wrestle with LLVM issues and more esoteric things like Sparc64 support.

It's a small miracle things like Rust are supported on OpenBSD at all, let alone things outside of -current.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if that were true their FAQ wouldn't tell you that broken packages weren't their responsibility.

That faq doesn't make a claim about how frequent such things are. In my experience it happens very rarely and is often quite easily resolved.

  >happens very rarely 
  >is often quite
Well you sure convinced me!

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#234
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Arch. I run it at home. That said, just because you had good luck doesn't mean that it's stable. Here's the most trivial way I can think to explain this: Check out Arch News.[0] Ctrl-F (Find) 'manual intervention'. Six years of results on the first page ; 13 instances of 'manual intervention required'. Reliability != stability. Stability usually implies a platform on which one can use and develop for without e…

I used to run Arch, I don't anymore although not for stability reasons. 13 instances of "manual intervention required" over 6 years seems awesome . I think I did 2 manual interventions during my time using Archlinux, and each time it took maybe 2 minutes, it was just a matter of copy-pasting the commands in Arch News.

That's not awesome at all, it means something happening every 6 months. In corporate environments this means all the ceremony around it: tickets, CAB, etc.

Meanwhile you can use RHEL or CentOS and basically leave the thing alone for 5 years.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#235
post #54
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shared libraries aren't just about reducing disk space and bandwidth consumption; it's also about fixing bugs in one place fixing it for all consumers. It requires discipline to only fix bugs and not break consumers, though, and therein lies the devil.

The notion that it's about fixing bugs in one place is revisionist. It's not what people thought they were for when they were introduced.

That’s a really broad claim to toss around with no documentation. It wasn’t true at least as far back as the 1990s and I would especially want a citation for the belief that there was a unified single voice across so many different engineering teams.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questi... ? > It is the user who is ultimately responsible for the stability of their own rolling release system. The user decides when to upgrade, and merges necessary changes when required. If the user reaches out to the community for help, it is often provided in a timely manner. The difference between Arch and other distributions in this regard is that Arch is…

> Of course a rolling release system is going to have more breakages. Well, no. The point of a rolling release system is that you upgrade by little increments, so you never have a moment when a 'major upgrade' happens and breaks your system or forces a reinstall.

I think a rolling release is going to have more breakages, but smaller.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't blame them. Firefox is a huge piece of software, and is updating every month . It's a bit shitty of Mozilla to expect every single distribution (most of which are run by volunteers) to package all their new dependencies and check everything works every single month.

This is a problem the package maintainers and the distros have brought on themselves! They put countless hours into stitching roadkill into a complex quilt and then scoff at users who complain on the rotting stench. They split packages from the creators into multiple pieces to meet their own idiosyncratic aesthetics. Firefox and other pieces of complex software should reside entirely in its own hierarchy. I have been…

i feel i could relate to another post on homepage today

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22022466

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#238
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies It's funny, from your point of view having a centralized repository with a (usually) single (usually) latest version of a lib…

I left arch linux because I got tired of all the breakages, so not a great example.

Oh man. This seems to have spawned an anecdota war.

I think the main issue/benefit with arch linux is that it wont try to do anything for you, except give you extra instructions for when a package change requires "manual intervention".

I put that in quotes because I don't think of that as breakage, I think of that as normal upkeep. We'll, as long as it's listed.

Anyway, the implications are that things can be stable longer on arch because there is no magic under the hood. But there will be times (though I haven't experienced it myself), where something unexpectedly breaks, and it'll be hard to recover unless you know what your doing... though maybe it's actually easy with the rolling back packages? The package manage does keep copies of old versions of packages, I've just never needed them.

As an example if this, my co worker and I have very similar thinkpad laptops. His graphics start doing wierd things that hes has to go fix after every update (Fedora or Ubuntu, can't remember). I took 4+ hours to get mine working how I want, with research and experimentation, but nothing has broke it since.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is funny, I could tell exactly the same story the other way around. I came as a 10+ year Debian user to Archlinux because it did too much automagic under the hood that broke and took a lot of time to fix. No breakage on arch because no automagic behind your back. For a long time before using arch I thought too that rolling release might be more unstable, but I have come to the conclusion that quite the opposite…

> I came as a 10+ year Debian user to Archlinux because it did too much automagic under the hood that broke and took a lot of time to fix. This assertion makes no sense. Debian Stable has always the paragon of stability to the point that it's actually criticised for it. The Debian Testing release is even famous for being more solid than other distro's stable releases. Breaking changes in Debian are practically only r…

The problem isn't so much that Debian packages or the ecosystem "breaks" as such, but that you run in to bugs (sometimes already fixed ones), and that you're then basically stuck with that unless you, the maintainer, or someone else decides to backport the fix, and they frequently don't get backported especially not for "minor" bugs.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#240
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left arch linux because I got tired of all the breakages, so not a great example.

This has to be one of the most inaccurate memes of all time. To counter with anecdata: I've been running Arch Linux testing repositories for over a year now with no issues whatsoever.

That's awfully nice for you. But my experience was horrible every single time I've tried Arch. The main problem is, every time you choose to update you have to brace yourself for possibly wasting another hour to repair the subtle breakage the new package version of some minor piece of software introduced.

I had Arch on a laptop I used for my freelance business once and took notes of the time spent on maintenance. So I actually have the numbers and know how much money I wasted compared to the time I used an Ubuntu LTS. Guess how many hours I wasted on repairing breakage on Ubuntu LTS. Exactly zero.

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