Will Firefox no longer be named Firefox?

[Scott]

", "Hervé Fache spake thusy);:
> On 9/26/06, Paul Marshall <soudak at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 9/26/06, Travis Watkins <alleykat at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 1) We patch it so it doesn't do autoupdate.
>>> 2) We do security patches, not updating to the latest versions.
>>> 3) We patch it to use the human theme.
>>> 4) I believe we turn on more GNOME integration stuff then upstream.
>> Ah, that makes more sense.  Again, I have to apologize for my newness, but
>> could someone point me to some conversations, or inform me, as to why
>> firefox is patched to turn autoupdate off.
> 
> Because it's not Windows, it's Ubuntu Linux: the software is not
> managed by Mozilla or any other third party, but by Ubuntu. This is
> why it integrates and works correctly in *Ubuntu, and this is why
> Ubuntu can claim mid- or even long-term support on it.

Well considering (in my opinion) Ubuntu "dropped the ball" with the 1.5
update/upgrade and....

this
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.5.0.7/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-1.5.0.7.tar.gz
runs faster on my box than anything in the Ubuntu archive and this
http://www.getswiftfox.com/builds/ubuntu/1.5.0.7/swiftfox_1.5.0.7-2ubuntu_athlon64.deb
run even faster I see no reason to bother with Ubuntu (most any other
Linux distro I've used).

In my experience what little advantage you get from using your
distributions version of Firefox is overridden by...

1) When Mozilla releases a security update you get it within 24 hours.
Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora can leave you vulnerable for days after that
(yes, I know why...but it's still a fact).

2) You *can* get quick and easy updates to the software since they don't
disable their own update feature.

3) It simply runs faster *much* faster than what you get from Ubuntu (or
Debian, Fedora, SUSE...).  I don't know what they do (or why) to slow it
down, but it happens (to me and many others I've heard from).

And since I discovered Swiftfox I found it runs even faster than
Mozilla's own.
> 
>> My initial email still stands for #2 -- why wouldn't someone (including
>> ubuntu developers) with a security patch work directly with the moz
>> foundation?
> 
> Not for older unsupported versions (like 1.0.7). The policy at Moz' is
> to force users to update to the latest stuff, not to support older
> versions, which causes loads of problems (extensions compatibility,
> potential need for re-newed human theme, you name it).

I've not seen Ubuntu supporting older (insecure versions).  They update
(albiet several days later at times) and then send out a notice on their
security-announce list.

The extension compatibility issue is minor.  Besides Ubuntu (right now)
has Firefox extensions for Edgy that are incompatible with Firefox for
Edgy (makes sense, eh).

The Human Theme is only a recent addition. Is it even part of Firefox
for Dapper (I'm running Edgy right now).

And if you really need it, it's also here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3008/

--
Scott
www.angrykeyboarder.com
© 2006 angrykeyboarder™ & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved