Downgrading Firefox 3.5 and Thunderbird 3.0

[Stephen Gallagher]

On 05/11/2009 10:15 AM, David wrote:
> On 5/11/2009 9:14 AM, Douglas E. Warner wrote:
>> David wrote:
>>> On 5/11/2009 8:07 AM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
>>>> OK, first off, why in $DEITY's name are we including Firefox 3.5b4 and
>>>> Thunderbird 3.0b2 in Fedora 11? These are unstable branches of the
>>>> browser and email client, and as such are supported by almost none of
>>>> the myriad of extensions available for the 3.0 and 2.0 versions,
>>>> respectively.
>>>>
>>>> I was more than a little disappointed when I upgraded my laptop to the
>>>> F11 Preview to discover that only two out of seven of my Thunderbird
>>>> extensions and three of my thirteen Firefox extensions remained functional.
>>> Depending on exactly what extensions that you have if you *download*
>>> them you can change this. Open the .xpi, or .jar, with the archive tool.
>>> Open the file named  'install.rdf'  with your text editor and look for
>>> the line that says "<em:maxVersion>". Change that number to the version
>>> that you are using. Or even a little higher if you like. Save and update
>>> the  'install.rdf', close the archive tool, and install your new extension.
>>>
>>> This works for most themes too.
>> The point is that most extension developers haven't felt the need to try to
>> update their extensions for Thunderbird 3 as the API hasn't stabilized yet.
>> Thunderbird extensions are much more finicky than Firefox extensions I would
>> wager, especially given this major feature update.  I would offer that Firefox
>> 3.5b4 is a lot closer to RC than Thunderbird 3.0b2 is, and I still expect
>> there to be problems with extensions for Firefox before release (this was very
>> common for Firefox 3.0 as well where changes broke extensions even in the RC
>> series).
> 
> 
> I use nine extensions with Thunderbird 3.0b2. Most of them I 'modified'
> as I described above. I use eleven extensions with Firefox 3.5b4. Most
> of which I 'modified'. I have not had any problems with any of them.

Ok, just so I make sure I understand your argument completely. "It's
fine to include a pre-release copy of Thunderbird and Firefox because
you can bludgeon unsupported extensions into being supported by
following an undocumented and potentially dangerous hack."

Seriously, people. This is exactly the sort of elitist bullshit that
puts people off of using Fedora. Furthermore, it's damned hypocritical.

With everything else on the desktop, we're all about simplifying and
making usage easier. But for the two most-used features, we're going to
require that our users learn to hack .xpi files?

I call bullshit.

-- 
Stephen Gallagher
RHCE 804006346421761

Looking to carve out IT costs?
www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 3258 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/attachments/20090511/eb57cbc0/attachment.p7s>