Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2022 17:11:13 +0000 From: bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.org To: ports-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: [Bug 251117] [NEW PORT] www/palemoon: Open-source web browser Message-ID: <bug-251117-7788-O1KCKHQWbr@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/> In-Reply-To: <bug-251117-7788@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/> References: <bug-251117-7788@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D251117 --- Comment #94 from Olivier Certner <olivier.freebsd@free.fr> --- Hi, Unfortunately, I have bad news. Upstream and I have ceased "collaboration". Details on this development are available at the end. It is now practically certain that they'll remove FreeBSD compatibility cod= e, maybe as soon as the next release (29.5). In any case, I advise users to st= art considering alternatives to this port now (which might be running the offic= ial Linux's version on Linux emulation, if that works; didn't test). I'm updating the patch so that official branding is disabled by default. Anybody can re-enable it for its own builds (they must just remain private)= . As a service to existing users, if and as long as new versions continue to bui= ld and work, I'll prepare patches for them. Including the port in its current form in the ports tree has become irrelev= ant. The browser should be rebranded and a new name devised before this can be considered again. If some people want to maintain a fork of Pale Moon's code base, first thing will be to assess what needs to be patched to make the code run again on FreeBSD once they have removed compatibility. The extent of this work is unclear to me, but given we have in the ports tree most of their third-party libraries, patches for them are likely to be reusable. I can provide minimal support for that in the form of what I've learned and done so far, FWIW. However, I don't plan to lead or even participate more than very occasional= ly to such an effort, since my own priorities have been shifting. I'm now much less interested in a customized GUI browsing experience than in modern web support, large scale security scrutiny and cooperative upstream development. Web compatibility has noticeably degraded in Pale Moon during the last year because lots of sites have been switching to WebComponents or some unsuppor= ted features of more recent ES standards. Upstream has been working on these du= ring this time, so at least they may be back on track on this front, perhaps as = soon as the next release. Unfortunately, as for genuine cooperation, they're sti= ll not cutting it. I would like to thank all people that supported this effort (and upstream d= oes the same), and especially ports management's members and ports committers w= ho have provided support and guidance. The effort was at times painful, but st= ill rewarding in some parts. I'm sorry I could not make it work. Hopefully some= of the people involved have learned a bit or two about communication, handling user requests or the tradeoffs involved in accepting a port in the ports tr= ee. Regards. ----------- I resumed discussion with upstream at the time indicated in the comments ab= ove, i.e., after tcberner's comment about portmgr not blocking import anymore, my fix to the port's recent compilation problem and further discussion indicat= ing that the port was in a good-enough shape to be included. The owner, Moonchild, said that it was a little late, since they were about= to remove all BSD-specific code. He wanted to be 100% certain that Ports management would completely accept some Pale Moon's peculiarities, such as bundled libraries, and not just "tolerate" them, temporarily or not, before possibly revising its plans. That's why I asked some more questions here and relayed the answers (I thank again both tcberner@ and koobs@ for these). But apparently, they were not enough for him, he wanted an official stance for = Pale Moon (that bundled libraries are OK), by fear of the port being arbitrarily removed later. At the same time, he started to exhibit paranoid behavior, first by questio= ning the timing of the possible inclusion in the ports tree (why would I and por= ts management "suddenly" make progress on this issue?). I thought he was saying that because I came with news just as he was about to remove BSD-specific c= ode, which of course I didn't know. I did know about their intention to do it, b= ut not about any precise execution plan. Moreover, I had sent a message around Christmas saying I was not able to work on including FreeBSD support into t= heir own build system before the end of the year, as I had committed to initiall= y. I never received any response, which I took to mean that they were too busy (working on web compatiblity, on a MPL license violation, etc.). But I was wrong about his fears: He was in fact thinking that we might have contacted= him again after he had sidelined Matt A. Tobin because of divergences, taking advantage of the situation to solve a possible personal problem. Given some other comments he had made, I thought I could reason him and show him he was completely wrong and paranoid, but this proved to be a mistake. On my side, I stated I was prepared to commit to more work on Pale Moon and= for 2 years, while I didn't have a precise work schedule for them for business reasons. Also, I wanted more reassurance that the collaboration could be perennial before engaging in this. In this respect, I voiced several concer= ns, especially asking up to which point he was actually backing or not Tobin in some of its violent reactions (because that actually jeopardizes the possibility to recruit co-maintainers or to find successors when I'm not he= re anymore, besides threatening our existing relationship), and what his take = on 2018's drama with OpenBSD was after he pretended that fearing redistribution license's change on a whim was paranoia on our side (irrational behavior on their part had already happened and done a lot of damage). Finally, I also = went on with detailing some possibilities technically and in terms of organizati= on as we would work forward. Unfortunately, he could not cope with my message = nor recognize any of their problematic behaviors. He mistook my own concerns as objections to its quality assurance's concerns, which they had nothing to do with. Finally, he did not respond to any of my detailed proposals, instead = just saying that we had no more basis for collaboration. Which I totally agree w= ith: If they are not able to even hear other's concerns (not even speaking about respecting them), to inform them on their actions and cannot recognize how = they could harm perennial collaboration, then I refuse to invest more time in th= is project. I don't think they know what genuine collaboration really is (or perhaps I'm guessing too well what they actually mean by "collaboration"). All these were private messages, which I intend to keep private. I might reconsider if they insist on challenging my summary of events though. --=20 You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.=
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