Re: Firefox 52's end of life, packaging Chromium

[Clément Lassieur]

Amirouche Boubekki <address@hidden> writes:

>> The problem is all users
>> that are not GNU followers (and some GNU followers like me) who need a
>> modern browser.
>
> Out of curiosity, please let us know what you need from the "modern
> browser"?
>
> On my side, I need a debugger for doing web frontends.

I need to browse all javascript bloated newspapers.

>> We definitely don't want to frighten them with our
>> nostalgic ideas about how the web should be and how a browser should be.
>
> I don't want to be rude at all, especially with who has been nice to me.
> But following that kind of logic cannot always be a good way forward.

:-)  If I sounded rude, I sincerely apologize.  I used the word
'nostalgic' because I do feel nostalgic: I miss the time when the web
wasn't that complicated.  And I really think some users might refuse to
install GuixSD just because it lacks Firefox or Chromium, which would be
sad.

>> They just want a browser that works.  As long as it's free software,
>> let's not complicate things for them.
>
> I agree. I am wondering what that browser make it the browser they
> want.

'They' possibly want anything that the main browsers (Firefox, Chromium,
Edge, IE, Safari) provide because a lot of sites are built based on
these 'modern' features.

>> Otherwise we'll never grow.
>
> Sorry again to disagree. I don't think the future of guix is in the
> desktop.  It has been said that GNU/Linux will kill windows on the
> desktop for a decade.  It did not happen. Nowadays, people use their
> computer only to run a browser whatever the OS... Given that, It seems
> to defy the de facto definition of a modern OS not to provide a "good
> enough" web experience.

There are people who need GuixSD features *and* a 'modern' browser.  I
don't think the choice should be either the OS or the browser.  I
personally need both.  (But maybe I misunderstood your point?)

> Ok. I will try to help  with
>
> a) chromium

About that, my point was that the actual state is good enough to be
pushed.  I've seen in another email that you succeeded in building it.
Of course any work on the TODO list is very welcome :-)  But I think we
should push it before those improvements are done, given the urgency.

> b) investigate what people are expecting from a modern web browser

Again, I believe that we should package every feature that are provided
by Firefox and Chromium, as long as they are ethical, because I think at
some point some Guix users will need them.

> c) See whether qtwebkit is follows upstream security updates and test
> it to see if it's stable
> d) do the same with webkit-gtk

Thank you!

Clément