[oi-dev] Would OI be interested in Pale Moon?

[Michal Nowak]

On 12/11/19 07:38 AM, Jeremy Andrews wrote:
> I ported UXP to illumos and Solaris recently, and I got them to take the
> code upstream. I'm pretty anxious about the process now honestly, and
> really want everything to work out. There are a few things I'm worried
> about, though.
> 
> 1. I'm not very familiar with how packages are actually packaged for OI,
> and the p5m file for Firefox in particular is... so complicated that
> I've been holding off creating a Pale Moon system package for OI until
> now, when they're pushing me to try. I was hoping that the subject
> wouldn't come up and they'd just want to distribute a binary .tar.xz
> file like they do for other operating systems (that kind of package is
> very easy to create with a single command). I'm so mixed up because the
> .p5m file for Firefox 52 looks so different from the one for Firefox 60,
> and includes all these header files, is for 32-bit, etc. And I'm trying
> to figure out which differences are due to a change in package design,
> and which are due to actual differences in Firefox.
> 
> 2. Pale Moon has some unusual requirements. For one thing, it can't use
> the system NSS because Mozilla has changed the API somewhat since they
> forked. In general, they're leery of using system libraries over the
> ones in their own tree because sometimes those libraries have to be
> modified in specific ways for the browser. On top of that, they seem to
> have a problem with distributing the langpacks with the browser. They
> have a site where you can download a langpack of your choice, but you
> can't ship it with the browser for some reason.
> 
> I'm kind of afraid now that I've done all this for nothing. I'm worried
> that their packaging requirements and our packaging requirements may not
> line up, and I'll wind up only being able to distribute a tarball on my
> own web space that no one will ever download. It's a very good browser,
> and the people behind it are actually decent people, but... I'm
> overwhelmed with the sense that I've gotten in over my head.

Given the hostility Pale Moon developers showed towards a license 
non-complying OpenBSD port at 
https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86, I'd rather avoid this 
community at all.

The other reason is maintenance cost on the OpenIndiana project. We 
already have Firefox and due to it's complexity it gives us hard time to 
keep-up even with ESR releases (currently we are stuck at version 60, 68 
is the latest one; the story for the 52->60 transition was the same). 
Same with Thunderbird. I am afraid Pale Moon would be another chapter of 
the very same story.

Michal