[arch-general] Firefox without signature checking

Sajan Parikh sajan at parikh.io
Sat Jan 2 23:19:52 UTC 2016


On 01/02/2016 07:24 PM, Magnus Therning wrote:
> The larger, and very philosophical question is "How user un-friendly 
> can upstream make it before Arch decides to *not* package as upstream 
> intends?" (Answering this requires keeping in mind that Arch users are 
> unlikely to fall squarely into the target group of upstream.) /M [1]: 
> https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/45900 -- Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 
> 0x927912051716CE39 email: magnus at therning.org jabber: 
> magnus at therning.org twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus Unix is 
> the answer, but only if you phrase the question very carefully. -- 
> Unknown 

I don't think Arch should even attempt to interperet questions like 
this.  There is a very natural line that is easy to follow and solves 
all these issues.  Upstream.  It's simple, clear, and leaves no room for 
interpertation or future inconsistencies across different software packages.

Release upstream as is (for the most part).  If the user doesn't like a 
decision upstream has made;  Compile it yourself, or change software.  I 
don't entirely understand where Arch's responsibility lies in all of 
this to make a feature that is no longer standard in the developer's 
mind a part of the standard package.

Arch shouldn't be answering philosophical questions.  Just package it as is.

I think it is VERY safe to say that people using unsigned stuff are in 
the minority, even for Arch users.  On top of that, given Mozilla's 
recent history, this entire setup will probably change in 12 months 
making all of this moot.

I think in the end, you need to ask yourself.  When you install Firefox, 
do you want Firefox, or Arch's version of Firefox that has changes?

I'm just a user.  I'm a software developer, but not for Arch.  As a user 
who recently switched to Arch, I did so to get the latest releases as 
they were released by upstream and just as important, *AS* they were 
released by upstream.

-- 
Sajan Parikh
563.447.0995
sajan at parikh.io


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