[Bug 1911463] Re: Can no longer successfully download Flash during postinst

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@Łukasz: Flash is dead since the year end. Adobe and the big browser
vendors have coordinated its EOL.

Possibly - I haven't bothered to investigate it that deep - there is a
use case where people want to keep the latest Flash plugin, do some
special configuration for the purpose, and use it locally together with
some obsolete browser version. But even if such a use case exists, I
don't think we should let it block this step. I'd say that there is no
longer any reason for us to support any kind of Flash. Think of removing
existing plugins as a security measure.

Let me add that the principal Flash package on Ubuntu was adobe-
flashplugin, provided via Canonical partner. That package was recently
killed in the same manner. If you like you can check with Chris Coulson
about his considerations.

Killing pepperflashplugin-nonfree is also an OEM request (bug #1871471).

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Title:
  Can no longer successfully download Flash during postinst

Status in pepperflashplugin-nonfree package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in pepperflashplugin-nonfree source package in Xenial:
  In Progress
Status in pepperflashplugin-nonfree source package in Bionic:
  In Progress
Status in pepperflashplugin-nonfree source package in Focal:
  In Progress
Status in pepperflashplugin-nonfree source package in Groovy:
  In Progress
Status in pepperflashplugin-nonfree package in Debian:
  Unknown

Bug description:
  [Impact]

  Since Adobe Flash Player is officially no longer available or end of
  life, they seem to have made a redirect to a link, that
  pepperflashplugin-nonfree likely uses for obtaining Flash, to the 'End
  of Life' page of the Flash website. This means that when installing
  pepperflashplugin-nonfree from now on it'll keep trying to download
  the HTML file for the end-of-life page.

  The proposed uploads are plain no-change SRU backports of the dummy
  package in hirsute sync'ed from Debian. With that we prevent more
  users from stalling their package system by trying to install or
  update pepperflash.

  [Test Case]

  * Install pepperflashplugin-nonfree from
    {groovy,focal,bionic,xenial}-proposed

  * Confirm that it installs successfully without causing any issues
    with the package system.

  * Run the "update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install" command and
    see the EOL notice.

  [Where problems could occur]

  We replace an obsolete package which creates issues with a dummy. The
  upgrade removes a config file in /etc, and the download and install
  functionality is not present in the new version. TBH I can't think of
  anything special.

  [Other Info]

  Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
  Newly installed pepperflashplugin-nonfree - 1.8.6ubuntu1

  Someone should probably update this package to, instead of trying in
  vain to download Flash, show a notice saying Flash has reached end-of-
  life and so this package is no longer available. Packages like Opera
  from the official Opera repository still depend on this package,
  currently.

  Output:
  Unpacking pepperflashplugin-nonfree (1.8.6ubuntu1) ...
  Setting up pepperflashplugin-nonfree (1.8.6ubuntu1) ...
  --2021-01-13 18:18:25--  https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/webservices/json/?platform_type=Linux&platform_arch=x86_64&browser_dist=Chrome
  Resolving get.adobe.com (get.adobe.com)... 193.104.215.66
  Connecting to get.adobe.com (get.adobe.com)|193.104.215.66|:443... connected.
  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
  Location: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html?platform_type=Linux&platform_arch=x86_64&browser_dist=Chrome [following]
  --2021-01-13 18:18:25--  https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html?platform_type=Linux&platform_arch=x86_64&browser_dist=Chrome
  Resolving www.adobe.com (www.adobe.com)... 2a02:26f0:104::1701:f2c0, 2a02:26f0:104::1701:f2cb, 176.255.202.96, ...
  Connecting to www.adobe.com (www.adobe.com)|2a02:26f0:104::1701:f2c0|:443... connected.

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