Updating thunderbird from 68 to 78 in focal

[Olivier Tilloy]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 3:27 PM Robie Basak <robie.basak at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Olivier for raising this.
>
> For clarity, the reason I think it's outside the remit of the SRU team
> is that I think the SRU team's delegation from the TB to directly decide
> on new features[1] as well as microrelease bumps[2] came with
> stipulations of stability for the rest of the archive. Deliberately
> breaking other existing packages in the archive to achieve an update
> are, I think, beyond the spirit of that delegation. If the TB wants they
> can delegate this particular matter back to the SRU team, but AIUI that
> would need to be a deliberate decision on the part of the TB.
>
> (says the person who now owns both hats anyway)
>
> I think a major release bump to Thunderbird in Focal is probably
> necessary, what our users expect, and will eventually be required for
> security anyway (if it isn't already). So in principle the bump is
> probably appropriate, especially given the nature of the packages we
> would have to break, which I think probably have virtually no users.
>
> I think the TB probably needs to decide:
>
> 1) If we should bump Thunderbird.
>
> 2) If breaking these other packages is acceptable (or if there is
> another appropriate approach to take) to achieve this.
>
> 3) How, technically, to go about breaking those packages in a way that
> will minimise impact to users.
>
> One thing Olivier confirmed on IRC is that a simple Breaks will not
> cause "apt upgrade" to remove the broken packages and upgrade
> Thunderbird as we'd want, if those other packages are installed. The GUI
> fares a little better but the UX might be considered "scary"[3].
>
> If anyone has ideas on the best technical approach to take for 2 and 3,
> I'd appreciate your comment.
>
> One question. Am I right in thinking that bumping Thunderbird will also
> deprecate Enigmail? Is there any special handling needed to support
> Enigmail-using users?

That's right, but the enigmail maintainer released an update that is
compatible with thunderbird 78 and shows a wizard on first run after
the update to import settings and keys into thunderbird's built-in PGP
support.
This is enigmail 2:2.2.4-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 currently in focal-proposed,
and it goes hand-in-hand with the thunderbird update.