Bug#569785: iceweasel: Please don't use homepage_override / welcome page; user not necessarily admin/developer
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 11:25:27AM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote: On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 01:58:37AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: Package: iceweasel Version: 3.5.6-2 Severity: important From the 3.5.6-2 changelog: * debian/branding/Makefile.in, debian/branding/firefox-branding.js: Use http://mozilla.debian.net pages for homepage_override and welcome. *Please* don't do this. I administrate systems for non-technical users. I try to make these systems work as transparently as possible, even when I need to upgrade them. Firefox upstream noisily reminds the user to update itself and its addons. I very much like(d) that Iceweasel does not do this, and neither do addons installed as Debian packages. I can update Debian packages any time a user doesn't have Iceweasel running, and they won't even notice. The new homepage_override and welcome page breaks this use case, and throws the user to an unfamiliar page rather than their usual homepage and search box. While I realize that you'd like to get technically inclined users to contribute, the page you've pointed at seems entirely unhelpful for users who just want their system to work. Actually, the page is to get even non-technical people to contribute. Let me clarify that I mean users who get confused if they open their browser and don't see exactly what they expect. Good luck. :) Anyways, since you are an administrator, you are also allowed to override homepage_override and welcome from /etc/iceweasel/prefs. Maybe putting the values there for you to modify would be helpful for people like you. Sigh. Yes, as a last resort I can fix the package locally, but I'd rather not have to. I greatly liked that Iceweasel hadn't inherited this particular annoyance from upstream. Furthermore, consider that almost any package would like to make the same call for help, and then consider what would happen if any significant fraction of the apps on a user's desktop nagged the user when run after an upgrade. Not a pleasant thought, and certainly not usable. How many of those have several millions lines of code and only _one_ maintainer ? And a codebase that needs a lot of hacking to prove suitable for Debian, at that. Please don't take this as an insult to your efforts; on the contrary, thank you very much for your maintenance of Iceweasel. Many packages in Debian have large codebases. As for having only one maintainer, fixing that seems like a goal best served by a mail to fellow developers, not a broadcast to all end-users of Iceweasel. It certainly seems like a good idea to get more developers involved in Iceweasel packaging; from reading your recent posts about forward-porting patches, it sounds like quite an undertaking. Also, out of curiosity, do you have any collaborators from other Linux distributions? It seems like other distributions would have this same problem, unless they just ship unmodified upstream Firefox (non-free bits and all, and no distro patches). I know Ubuntu has their abrowser equivalent, which AFAICT seems like iceweasel minus the quirky name/logo. In any case, while I understand the goal, in attempting to solve it this way you've made Iceweasel more difficult to use by default for a reasonably common use case (maintaining a system for others). And yes, displaying anything other than the user's homepage really does mean questions for the admin about what to do. And, even as a technical user, I find the page more annoying than helpful. At least the upstream equivalents point the user at useful addons, new features, and so on. And the page being new, it isn't fully written either. Don't jump on conclusions too fast. I recognize that the page, if it remains, will improve over time. I just mean that it doesn't seem like the appropriate forum in which to ask for help; it seems like the appropriate forum in which to *offer* help, at best. It also seems like the wrong *time* to grab the user's attention, when they just opened their browser, presumably with the intention of browsing to something else. When I mentioned what the upstream equivalents do, I didn't mean to imply that they seemed like a good idea either, just that at least they tried to help the user. Furthermore, upstream assumes an install or upgrade model that doesn't fit Debian. Upstream assumes that the user will upgrade by running the in-browser upgrade mechanism, or install by running the installer. In both cases, the browser will immediately run again, in front of the user who just installed/upgraded it; thus, a welcome page doesn't exactly come as a surprise. In Debian, on the other hand, the install/upgrade can happen at a different time than the first run, and can involve a different user. (In fact, it *will*, on anything other than a single-user system.) I think you'd get more useful help from a call to debian-devel-announce. (And for translations, BTW, you'd probably get
Bug#569785: iceweasel: Please don't use homepage_override / welcome page; user not necessarily admin/developer
On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:13:00AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: snip A quick look at the debian-devel-announce archives didn't turn up any mails asking for help; have you considered sending one? I've sent several call for helps on my blog and debian-devel ; I also did a BoF at Debconf 9, where the idea of nagging was suggested. Please reconsider your use of upstream's nag-on-upgrade facility for this purpose. Please note that the nag-on-upgrade facility won't be triggered on stable systems, except after a dist-upgrade from lenny to squeeze. The idea is also to get unstable users to actually report problems and help improve what will end up in stable. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100216192106.ga6...@glandium.org
Bug#569785: iceweasel: Please don't use homepage_override / welcome page; user not necessarily admin/developer
On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:39:30AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 08:21:06PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote: On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:13:00AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: snip A quick look at the debian-devel-announce archives didn't turn up any mails asking for help; have you considered sending one? I've sent several call for helps on my blog and debian-devel ; I also did a BoF at Debconf 9, where the idea of nagging was suggested. As I understand it, debian-devel-announce draws a lot more attention than debian-devel, given relative volume and subscription. I think for a package like Iceweasel you can easily justify poking it. :) It seems worth a shot, anyway. Please reconsider your use of upstream's nag-on-upgrade facility for this purpose. Please note that the nag-on-upgrade facility won't be triggered on stable systems, except after a dist-upgrade from lenny to squeeze. The idea is also to get unstable users to actually report problems and help improve what will end up in stable. If this message will almost never appear to stable users, that will greatly help; much appreciated. Technically, it will only appear when the xulrunner version changes. The upcoming stable security update is expected to be the last update to not follow the debian way of backporting changes and keeping the current version, which means stable users shouldn't see the page after an upgrade. OTOH, backports users will. In the meantime, if this message will stick around, I guess I'd better get to improving it. ;) The message in its current form has been put together quickly and is not thought to be a definitive version. I do intend to add real notes about what is new, for instance. But please feel free to give a hand ;) Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100216195321.ga19...@glandium.org
Bug#569785: iceweasel: Please don't use homepage_override / welcome page; user not necessarily admin/developer
On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 08:21:06PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote: On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:13:00AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: snip A quick look at the debian-devel-announce archives didn't turn up any mails asking for help; have you considered sending one? I've sent several call for helps on my blog and debian-devel ; I also did a BoF at Debconf 9, where the idea of nagging was suggested. As I understand it, debian-devel-announce draws a lot more attention than debian-devel, given relative volume and subscription. I think for a package like Iceweasel you can easily justify poking it. :) It seems worth a shot, anyway. Please reconsider your use of upstream's nag-on-upgrade facility for this purpose. Please note that the nag-on-upgrade facility won't be triggered on stable systems, except after a dist-upgrade from lenny to squeeze. The idea is also to get unstable users to actually report problems and help improve what will end up in stable. If this message will almost never appear to stable users, that will greatly help; much appreciated. In the meantime, if this message will stick around, I guess I'd better get to improving it. ;) - Josh Triplett -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100216193929.gg19...@feather
Bug#569785: iceweasel: Please don't use homepage_override / welcome page; user not necessarily admin/developer
Package: iceweasel Version: 3.5.6-2 Severity: important From the 3.5.6-2 changelog: * debian/branding/Makefile.in, debian/branding/firefox-branding.js: Use http://mozilla.debian.net pages for homepage_override and welcome. *Please* don't do this. I administrate systems for non-technical users. I try to make these systems work as transparently as possible, even when I need to upgrade them. Firefox upstream noisily reminds the user to update itself and its addons. I very much like(d) that Iceweasel does not do this, and neither do addons installed as Debian packages. I can update Debian packages any time a user doesn't have Iceweasel running, and they won't even notice. The new homepage_override and welcome page breaks this use case, and throws the user to an unfamiliar page rather than their usual homepage and search box. While I realize that you'd like to get technically inclined users to contribute, the page you've pointed at seems entirely unhelpful for users who just want their system to work. Furthermore, consider that almost any package would like to make the same call for help, and then consider what would happen if any significant fraction of the apps on a user's desktop nagged the user when run after an upgrade. Not a pleasant thought, and certainly not usable. And, even as a technical user, I find the page more annoying than helpful. At least the upstream equivalents point the user at useful addons, new features, and so on. - Josh Triplett -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100214095837.2941.60353.report...@whisper
