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

[Adam Števko]

Thanks Michal for pointing that out. I wasn’t aware of that. Additional reason to avoid it then :)

> On 11 Dec 2019, at 09:22, Michal Nowak via oi-dev <oi-dev at openindiana.org> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
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