RE: backport of firefox as alternative to firefox-esr
Hello!
Firefox Version 60, with all its major redesigns, was published almost half a year ago. The current version 52 in Debian "stable" or "testing" is 18 month old, and its under the hood technical design to my knowledge many more years ol. I agree that it might not be necessary to stay on pace with each single update which Mozilla brings up, but if version 60 is going to become the next ESR, having received a major technical redesign under the hood, and the current version 52 ESR will run out of support in September, wouldn't it be time to once get the version 60, into the testing branch, so that it indeed can be tested?
I am sadly observing how Debian is in continues little steps disappearing as a serious contender as a desktop distribution, but missing up-to-date browsers in its repository is now going to be big steps towards that direction. This is why I brought up the topic here on the backports list. We all have our reasons to stay with a really "stable" installation, and soon or later we might upgrade to what is now "testing". But if even "testing" is no more on pace with some _major_ updates, then" backports" would be the last deliverance - otherwise the doom for Debian as a desktop distribution comes dangerously close.
I by now run "stable" for feeling comfortable with the trust to have a stable base concerning communication protocols, data storage, session & window manager, administrative tools, etc. - without having to be expert enough to evaluate how unstable all the alternatives are. Then selectively adding some few end-user applications (adding some stability risks) to my minimal install is all I need. If this means, these days, to run those end-user applications as sandboxed snap apps, in order to have some up-to-date programs at hand, then I am forced to go that way. But I am feeling bad to do so because of leaving behind all the well-thought and well-tried concepts which made Linux stable -stable also in the meaning of predictable. But maybe the sandboxed snap apps are the proper concept for the future of (Debian) Linux as a desktop system? Wouldn't it then be appropriate to update the Firefox page in the Debian Wiki accordingly (https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox), explaining there how to install the snap packaged version of Firefox instead of publishing the outdated information on how to install it manually although unmet dependencies would hamper this? Shall I better discuss this elsewhere, where?
Best regards, Marco!
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