Re: Packaging a free Firefox

[Clément Lassieur]

Clément Lassieur <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I find Icecat very buggy, even if I compare it to a home-made Firefox
> package that inherits Icecat (and thus is very close to Icecat).  For
> example I can't even pay with my credit card with icecat-52-guix,
> whereas I can with firefox-home-52-guix.  (It looks like a javascript
> issue.)  Also, lots of videos don't work, and it's difficult to know
> whether it's because of technical issues or because of DRM.
>
> This may discourage people from using GuixSD.
>
> My understanding is that Icecat exists because of two reasons:
>   1. a trademark/logo issue,
>   2. the need to remove non-free code from Firefox.
>
> But it does more:
>   3. it only packages the stables versions of Firefox,
>   4. it adds add-ons,
>   5. it prevents the installation of non-free plugins,
>   6. probably other things that I'm not aware of.
>
> It seems to me that the trademark/logo issue and the non-free code
> removal could be dealt with at the Guix packaging level.  It's probably
> just a huge bunch of substitutes to do.  The package would be huge, but
> at least we would have control on it.
>
> That would remove a layer of complexity, and probably reduce bugs (that
> come from that layer).  That would also allow us to have a recent
> version of Firefox.
>
> And it would be way better than everyone (I exaggerate a bit) having his
                                                                their  ^
> home-made non-maintened full-of-security-issues Firefox.
>
> What do you think?
> Clément