removing enigmail from jessie?
On 2018-09-26 22:52:01, Antoine Beaupré wrote:
> So one problem we have with maintaining the post-XUL programs like
> Thunderbird and Firefox is not only backporting the build toolchain, but
> also the leaf dependencies.
>
> Enigmail, for example, is broken since Thunderbird 60 landed in stretch:
>
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909000
>
> Fixing this in stretch will be a significant challenge, let alone in
> jessie. I wonder how we want to approach this.
>
> Presumably, Emilio, while working on Firefox, would also backport the
> toolchain necessary for Thunderbird, is that correct?
>
> Enigmail's work, then, might be better targeted at helping the folks in
> stretch, although I do wonder how we could possibly upgrade GnuPG 2
> (required to get a new version of Enigmail compatible with TB 60) in
> jessie without causing all sorts of unrelated trouble. Keep in mind that
> Jessie still runs the old 2.0 release instead of the (recommended) 2.1
> (stretch) or 2.2 (buster) releases.
So thinking about this again, I see three options:
1. Make Enigmail work with GnuPG 2 in Debian and ship the result in
jessie-securtiy. As mentioned above, I think this has huge
implications and risks breaking unrelated software, so it's not
really an option.
2. Same as #1, but ship the updates through sloppy backports. We could
then have gnupg2.2 and enigmail live together. It could still break
things, but at least we could say "told you so" and parade around
like it's not our fault. Obviously not ideal either.
3. Package the missing dependencies for openpgp.js that make Enigmail
work without GnuPG. That's another big undertaking and it requires
making Javascript packages cross NEW, which is a challenge onto
itself. I've done the little magic thing to list the dependencies
and document this in #787774 but we're far from having this
ready. But at least this would work without damaging unrelated
software.
4. Just give up on Enigmail in jessie and remove it from the list of
supported packages. Enigmail is listed in the addons and works well
from there as it's pure Javascript. I'm not sure how that could be
handled: just removing the package from the archive would leave
people without upgrades or a notification that the package is gone
(a recurring problem we should solve, IMHO).
I'm leaning towards working a bit towards #3 since that would benefit
everyone in the long term, but I suspect the endgame will be #4:
removal.
Comments?
--
Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their
strengths.
- Lois Wyse
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