Why don't we use Mozilla ESR in Precise?
Chris Coulson
chrisccoulson at ubuntu.com
Tue Feb 7 10:57:26 UTC 2012
On 06/02/12 17:55, Micah Gersten wrote:
> On 02/06/2012 05:49 AM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
>> On 06. feb. 2012 10:22, Jason Warner wrote:
>>> Hi All -
>>>
>>> Firefox ESR is indeed interesting, and it would seem to answer some
>>> of the question corporations might have about Firefox, but I think
>>> it is less interesting for Ubuntu.
>>>
>>
>> You have to understand that my original post was not meant as a
>> proposal, but as an open question. If Ubuntu now prefers the rapid
>> release pace of Firefox and Thunderbird, then it doesn't bother me
>> that much. But it does represent a shift in strategy. 10.04 has used
>> 3.6 until very recently when it became unsupported. The reason that
>> was given for not upgrading it, was the SRU process. The reason that
>> was given for starting to upgrade Firefox in a rapid pace afterwards,
>> was that Mozilla had changed their support strategy and that it
>> wouldn't be feasible to backport the necessary security patches to
>> old versions. But now, Mozilla has changed their support strategy
>> again, making it unnecessary to circumvent the norms.
>>
>> Now this becomes a question of communication, which to me is the
>> biggest weakness Ubuntu has that we can do something about. If this
>> is an active decision, then I would be interested to know when it was
>> made and why we haven't heard anything about it. This is a
>> significant shift, and though I try to pay close attention to what's
>> going on, it came as a complete surprise to me. I looked for
>> blueprints, but I couldn't find any;
>> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise?searchtext=firefox.
>> It is bad communication, and we need to improve. I really don't like
>> those surprises. I spend a fair amount of time writing articles and
>> participating in discussions, in an effort to reduce some of the
>> misunderstandings that will always be a part of FOSS. Because
>> development is high pace and developers doesn't always have time, or
>> even skills, to write comprehensible non-tech articles explaining why
>> and how. When things like that suddenly changes without notice, then
>> it can easily make what I write, wrong. In that case, my
>> contributions, instead of being a small part of a small solution,
>> becomes a bigger part of a big problem. I don't think I have to
>> explain why that's demoralizing.
>>
>> Consider documentation writers. You've spent a few hours writing some
>> paragraphs or pages explaining why Ubuntu doesn't use the newest
>> version of Firefox. You're satisfied that your explanation really
>> does explain and is comprehensible by anyone. That's not easy. It's
>> hard work. So you commit. Then translators begin working on it. And
>> translating single strings is not always that difficult, but
>> translating an article, is. You finish two months ahead of schedule.
>>
>> But then someone makes a silent little decision, and instead of being
>> two months ahead, you're suddenly two years outdated. Bad
>> communication hurts both enthusiasm and the finished product. We need
>> predictability.
>>
>> As usual, this has become much longer than I had intended. Let me
>> finish by making a proposal. Let's use the ESR versions by default in
>> LTS versions of Ubuntu, and add a package called something like
>> firefox-fastpace for those who want that. This way, we don't disrupt
>> the stability and predictability that is so attractive to those who
>> chooses LTS versions, but also make it easy for those who do want to
>> be on the cutting edge of the browser developments. When upgrading
>> from an LTS to a non-LTS, the user should be asked if the ESR version
>> should still be used, or switch to the fast pace version.
>>
>> Thanks for reading,
>>
>> Jo-Erlend Schinstad
>>
>
> There was a UDS session on this [1] which I lead. I was originally of
> the opinion that the ESR for LTS releases was the best course of
> action. However, my wise colleagues have shown me that I was
> mistaken. I thought it would be just like 3.6 (stable ABI, still
> getting High/Critical fixes). The problems are:
>
> * High/Critical fixes will be backported only if it's not too
> difficult (whatever that means)
> * There are usually new security features with each rapid release
> * No large testing base as Jason pointed out
> * Upgrades from ESR -> ESR will also be more shocking as UI across 7
> releases can change quite a bit
> * No guarantee of ESR existence past year 2 (or even that long
> depending on how you read it)
> * No guarantee that the ESR is inherently a stable platform (meaning
> that previously, you had a release that was frozen and bug fixed
> for a while before it was stable, Firefox 10 was stable enough for
> 6 weeks of life, but who says it's stable enough for a year)
> * The ever changing web, we recently migrated Lucid and Maverick to
> Rapid Release since Flash and some websites were breaking with 3.6
> * The browser is one of the most exploited pieces of software on
> Linux outside of the Kernel
> * (from Lucid Firefox 3.6 comparison) Why is Chromium so much faster?
>
> With all these reasons, it seemed clear that we don't want the ESR in
> the LTS or any Ubuntu release. We want to make sure that our users
> have the best browsing experience possible.
>
> Thank you,
> Micah Gersten
> Ubuntu Security Team
> Ubuntu Mozilla Team
>
>
> [1] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/security-p-mozilla-lts
>
>
Hi,
Thanks for all of your comments and opinions. Of course, I support our
decision to not offer the Firefox ESR by default in the Ubuntu LTS.
I've tried to explain the reasons why I think that this is a good thing
in http://www.chriscoulson.me.uk/blog/?p=111.
Regards
Chris
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