Bug#923801: RFP: iceweasel-uxp -- Firefox XUL (pre-Quantum) fork from Hyperbola

[Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net>]

Package:  wnpp
Severity: wishlist

	Please package Iceweasel-UXP, a Firefox fork maintained as part
	of the Hyperbola distribution [1].

[1] https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:project:iceweasel-uxp

	I suppose that begs for an explanation, now doesn’t it?

	While I’m not in position to judge on the pro’s and cons. of
	various extension interfaces contemporary full-weight browsers
	implement (I’ve contemplated writing a rather trivial Firefox
	extension several years ago, and was never able to figure out
	why they seem to demand a whole directory structure for what’s
	ought to be a few dozen LoC), I note that several Firefox
	extensions that I’ve used pretty much died out as the result of
	the transition from XUL to the newer WebExtensions API.  E. g.:

	• xul-ext-classic-theme-restorer – the author has claimed that
	  it cannot be implemented as a WebExtension and suggested that
	  userChrome.js is modified instead (say, [2]); unless I be
	  mistaken, this requires restarting Firefox for the edits to
	  take effect, which makes customization far more cumbersome
	  that it used to be, and that (IMO) it has any right to be;

	• xul-ext-certificatepatrol – likewise, but no alternative
	  suggested [3];

	• xul-ext-zotero – has been replaced by the zotero-standalone
	  package.

	Of course, there’re several other free XUL (UXP) browsers [4],
	such as Pale Moon (RFP Bug#780379.)  Unfortunately, its
	upstream’s insistence on embedding a number of libraries (with
	browser-specific patches applied to them) will likely make it a
	major headache to the Debian Security Team.  I suppose Basilisk
	(by the same team) also has some of this problem.

	To conclude, as a long-time user of GNU Emacs, I believe that
	having a full-weight browser that offers Emacs-class extensibility
	will be beneficial to Debian users.  So far as I can tell,
	Iceweasel-UXP is the closest option to this goal there is.

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20171226180650/https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/
[3] http://patrol.psyced.org/
[4] http://thereisonlyxul.org/

-- 
FSF associate member #7257  http://am-1.org/~ivan/