Downgrading Firefox 3.5 and Thunderbird 3.0

Martin Sourada martin.sourada at gmail.com
Mon May 18 21:21:05 UTC 2009


On Mon, 2009-05-11 at 08:07 -0400, 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.
> 
> I understand that Fedora is a development OS, and I think it's a great
> idea to have a firefox35 package and a thunderbird30 package, but these
> SHOULD NOT be the defaults.
> 
> Taking away the full functionality of a developer's web browser and
> email client is an incredible step backwards for Fedora 11. The default
> install of Fedora 11 should include the latest STABLE versions of
> Firefox and Thunderbird, and then provide an OPTION to replace them with
> the unstable development branch.
> 
> I would understand if Firefox and Thunderbird were in their release
> candidate phase, and we could reasonably expect that within three months
> that they would hit final release. Firefox has no definitive (or even
> approximate) release date scheduled, and Thunderbird is only in its
> second beta. There is little-to-no guarantee that either of these
> products will be deemed stable before Fedora 12, and I think it is a
> severe mistake to make them the default before then.
> 
> If nothing else, consider this an open request to the Firefox,
> Thunderbird and Lightning maintainers to provide a compatibility package
> that can downgrade and replace the unstable and non-extensible versions
> currently in the distribution.

Hrm, from a viewport of a xulrunner user (via epiphany), lately much
more webkitgtk user (via midori), and an evolution user, I'd say the new
gecko works worse in some areas (and better in others) than the one in
F10, yet it seems feasible that firefox 3.5 stable floods the tubes
within the F11-being-latest-stable timeframe. Considering how wonky the
firefox release process is and how our users have strong desire to have
the newest technology, I certainly don't envy whoever makes the final
decision whether we'll go with it or revert. This time I am geared
towards including FF3.5 in F11.

As for thunderbird, seeing how it's only a second beta, I'd say we're a
little early here, but considering it is not our default mail client,
and is not even installed by default, I don't see it as much bigger
issue either.

Just my 2 cents,
Martin
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