At 10:14 am, Tuesday, December 10 2002, Joey Hess mumbled:
> As discussed earlier on this list, and now implemented by lots of stuff
> in Debian[2] and with only a few to go[3], I'm proposing that the
> following be added to policy around section 12.4:
>
> Web browsers
> ------------
>
> Some programs have the ability to launch a web browser to display an URL.
> Since there are lots of different web browsers available in the Debian
> distribution, the system administrator and each user should have the
> possibility to choose a preferred web browser.
>
> In addition, programs should choose a good default web browser if none
> is selected by the user or system administrator.
>
> Thus, every program that launches a web browser with an URL must use the
> BROWSER environment variable to determine what browser the user wishes
> to use.
>
> The value of BROWSER may consist of a colon-separated series of browser
> command parts. These should be tried in order until one succeeds. Each command
> part may optionally contain the string "%s"; if it does, the URL to be viewed
> is substituted there. If a command part does not contain %s, the browser is to
> be launched as if the URL had been supplied as its first argument. The string
> %% must be substituted as a single %
> <footnote>
> This browser variable was proposed by Eric Raymond at
> http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/BROWSER/
> </footnote>
>
> If the BROWSER environment variable is not set, the program should use
> /usr/bin/x-www-browser if there is an available X Window System DISPLAY,
> and /usr/bin/www-browser if not. These two files are managed through the dpkg
> alternatives mechanism. Thus every package providing a general-purpose
> web browser must call the update-alternatives program to register
> the appopriate one of these alternatives.
>
> If it is very hard to adapt a program to make use of the BROWSER variable,
> that program may be configured to use /usr/bin/sensible-www-browser
> instead. This is a program provided by the Debian base system that checks
> the BROWSER environment variable, and falls back to /usr/bin/x-www-browser
> or /usr/bin/www-browser if it is not set.
>
> I'm looking for seconds. If you seconded the earlier, informal proposal,
> please re-second this formal one.
>
Seconded.
--
Steve
"Proofread carefully to see if you any words out."
-- Commit message from PeterK
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