Your message dated Mon, 20 Jan 2014 23:46:15 +0000
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Bug#736165: Removed package(s) from unstable
has caused the Debian Bug report #104571,
regarding mozilla: should override the plug-in site
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
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--
104571: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=104571
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: mozilla
The email below is in response to RMS's inquiry about mozilla allowing
users to blindly download non-free plug-ins. Frank Hecker suggested the
below solution that Debian could implement. I'm sure we could work with
the FSF, which could maintain the list of free plug-ins, and redirect
our browser there.
Ben
----- Forwarded message from Frank Hecker <[email protected]> -----
From: Frank Hecker <[email protected]>
Organization: CollabNet, Inc.
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Re: Converting Mozilla to dual license
Richard Stallman wrote:
> I do not know how the plug-in mechanism is designed. Does Mozilla
> operate a site with all the common plug-ins, associated with their
> names? Or does each page that needs a plug-in refer to some URL
> on a site set up for that particular plug-in?
I have looked into this question, at least enough to provide you an
initial answer:
Mozilla itself does not maintain a list of plugins. Instead Mozilla
knows about a single URL ("PLUGINSPAGEURL"), which references a site
where information about plug-ins may be found. The basic idea is that
Mozilla takes the MIME type of the data object for which it does not
have a plug-in installed, appends that MIME type to the base URL for the
plug-in site, and then goes an HTTP GET operation on the resulting URL:
http://<PLUGINSPAGEURL>?<MIME-TYPE>
where <MIME-TYPE> is, e.g., "application/foo".
I am not clear on the exact mechanism used (it seems to vary depending
on whether Mozilla has JavaScript enabled or not), but I think what
happens is that the site is supposed to look up the MIME type, return a
URL at which a plug-in can be found that can handle that MIME type, and
redirect Mozilla to that URL. And of course the site could return a
single URL for all MIME types, or could return the URL of an error page
if there is no plug-in available for a given type.
Currently the PLUGINSPAGEURL value references a site maintained by
Netscape. I recommend that Debian consider maintaining its own site for
its version of Mozilla; it seems to be simple enough to do, and requires
only a one-line change to Mozilla in order to specify the plug-ins site
URL.
(I should add that the URL is a part of Mozilla that is intended to be
customizable by each Mozilla distributor. Ideally the value should be
specified by a Mozilla preference, so that individual users could change
it if desired. Unfortunately at present no one has yet written the code
to store and retrieve the value as a preference; it is implemented as a
preprocessor constant.)
The Debian group can then ensure that the Debian site references only
plug-ins that qualify as free software, and that are known to work on
the Debian distribution. In cases where a plug-in exists for a
particular MIME type but is not free software, the site can redirect to
a (Debian-maintained) page that explains this, and the user can then
decide whether they wish to retrieve and install the plug-in or not.
For reference, PLUGINSPAGEURL is defined in the file nullplugin.h in the
Mozilla source directory modules/plugin/default/unix. The actual code is
in the file nullplugin.c in the same directory. Here are URLs where you
can view the source code:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/modules/plugin/default/unix/nullplugin.h
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/modules/plugin/default/unix/nullplugin.c
Note that there seems to be a somewhat different mechanism for handling
the special case of finding a Java "plug-in", i.e., finding a JVM
implementation usable with Mozilla if one is not already installed. I
have not looked into this closely.
Frank
--
Frank Hecker work: http://www.collab.net/
[email protected] home: http://www.hecker.org/
----- End forwarded message -----
--
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/ Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` [email protected] -- [email protected] -- [email protected] '
`---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Version: 2.7.12-1+rm
Dear submitter,
as the package iceape has just been removed from the Debian archive
unstable we hereby close the associated bug reports. We are sorry
that we couldn't deal with your issue properly.
For details on the removal, please see https://bugs.debian.org/736165
The version of this package that was in Debian prior to this removal
can still be found using http://snapshot.debian.org/.
This message was generated automatically; if you believe that there is
a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing
[email protected].
Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Ansgar Burchardt (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)
--- End Message ---
