On Mon, 11 Oct 2010, Russ Allbery wrote:
Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <jordigh@gmail.com> writes:I guess so, although I don't personally even use unstable myself for the aforementioned reasons. However, unstable is used as the "desktop" version of Debian by a large number of users, and the awkward development it gets during freeze time is not really fixed by experimental.The *real* problem is that labelling Firefox 3.6 as "experimental" is downright silly.Hm, okay. I guess I'm not feeling particularly inspired to do any work based on that reaction. Names are pretty arbitrary, and having the name be what you consider to be the most urgent problem makes me think this isn't really an issue. It's not Firefox 3.6 that's experimental, regardless; it's at most the *Debian packaging* of it, which is a distinct entity. I can see the argument of people who'd like to have new software in unstable during the freeze period since they're not very interested in the stable release, and that's come up before (such as in the CUT discussions), but as with your note above, this seems most often to be an argument made theoretically by people who aren't personally having significant issues.
I'm a Debian desktop user who runs Iceweasel from Debian, and I have an "issue" which is that:
* Firefox 3.5-based browsers crash more often than 3.6.4 and above. See also http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/06/22/firefox-3-6-4-with-crash-protection-now-available/
* Extensions get updated by upstream, and I can't install the most recent versions because they're not compatible with my browser.
* Firefox 3.6 has faster JavaScript, which is the difference between this page being usable, and it not: http://openhatch.org/people/. (Admittedly that's a site under my control, so I can improve it; but there are surely other such pages.)
And so on.We're going to ship the crashier (since plugins are in-process) 3.5.x Firefox code to the millions/thousands/whatevers of Debian users in squeeze, even though we could have possibly shipped 3.6. That's because of the freeze, and surely lots of complex issues relating to xulrunner dependencies. But it would be less of a big deal if the freeze lasted less time.
If I feel this strongly, I should probably join the Mozilla applications packaging team. I may yet do that. Actually, I guess I should do that right now.
http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianMozAppsTeam?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=mozilla+team&titlesearch=Titles returns no results...
http://packages.debian.org/experimental/iceweasel indicates that (1) I can have Fx 3.6 (sweet, I'll install that right now) and (2) that http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-mozilla-maintainers is the list to join.
I've now joined it. If anyone else wants to come there with me, I bet we can make the Mozilla apps teams' lives better. (-:
Also, I realize I can help the freeze be shorter -- fix a release-critical bug. I'll remember to keep that on the queue.
(This email is now just me rambling, not me having a point. I think.) -- Asheesh. -- Many pages make a thick book.