Bug#172436: Updated BROWSER proposal
Here is an updated proposal for wording around BROWSER, the www-browser
and x-www-browser alternatives, and sensible-browser. Following the
discussion of the previous proposal, this downgrades supporting BROWSER to
a recommendation and downgrades registering the alternatives to should
from must. It also documents the behavior of sensible-browser with
desktop environments.
Does this answer everyone's objections? If so, I'm looking for seconds.
diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index 7c8cfe1..7999182 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -8675,6 +8675,68 @@ name ["<var>syshostname</var>"]:
for games (X and non-X games) should be installed in
<file>/usr/share/man/man6</file>.</p>
</sect>
+
+ <sect>
+ <heading>Web browsers</heading>
+
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ In addition, programs should choose a good default web browser
+ if none is selected by the user or system administrator.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The recommended way to satisfy these goals is for every program
+ that launches a web browser with a URL to use the BROWSER
+ environment variable to determine what browser the user wishes
+ to use.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The value of BROWSER may consist of a colon-separated series of
+ browser command parts. These should be tried in order until one
+ succeeds. A command part consists of the command to executed
+ followed by 0 or more arguments separated by one or more spaces.
+ The command and arguments should be separated at the spaces, the
+ URL added as a final argument, and the resulting command
+ executed directly (not via the shell).<footnote>
+ This protects against bugs and security problems caused by
+ shell metacharacters in the browser arguments or URL. This
+ specification is compatible with the
+ <url id="http://www.dwheeler.com/browse/";
+ name="Alternative Secure BROWSER Definition">.
+ </footnote>
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ If the BROWSER environment variable is not set, the program can
+ use <file>/usr/bin/x-www-browser</file> if DISPLAY is set, and
+ <file>/usr/bin/www-browser</file> if not. These two files are
+ managed through the dpkg alternatives mechanism. Thus every
+ package providing a general-purpose web browser should call the
+ <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn> program to register the
+ appopriate one of these alternatives.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ Instead of implementing the above in every program that runs a
+ web browser, programs in Debian may be configured to use
+ <file>/usr/bin/sensible-browser</file>. This is a program
+ provided by the Debian base system that checks the BROWSER
+ environment variable, falls back to the configured browser in
+ the user's desktop environment, and then falls back to
+ <file>/usr/bin/x-www-browser</file> or
+ <file>/usr/bin/www-browser</file> if BROWSER is not set and no
+ recognized desktop environment is in use.
+ </p>
+ </sect>
</chapt>
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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