Bug#569785: iceweasel: Please don't use homepage_override / welcome page; user not necessarily admin/developer

[Josh Triplett]

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 more useful help by
poking Debian's excellent translators; bonus if you can somehow get it
to show up in the translation statistics, like other .po-based
translation efforts.)

A quick look at the debian-devel-announce archives didn't turn up any
mails asking for help; have you considered sending one?

Please reconsider your use of upstream's nag-on-upgrade facility for
this purpose.

- Josh Triplett