Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 15:14 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] Hey look another release where they still haven't fixed the firefox-jumps-on-top-of-other-windows bug. Yes this was reported since early dev releases of what became firefox 3. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 15:53 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] (9 responses) Is the bug where the right mouse button at times does whatever it wants fixed? Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:10 UTC (Wed) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (8 responses) I suppose this is the bug that quickfind forces focus on the firefox window if the quickfind status bar disappears after a timeout. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:36 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (7 responses) I don't think so... Sometimes Firefox does random things on rightclick. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:41 UTC (Wed) by thoffman (guest, #3063) [Link] (6 responses) Do note that some pages modify rightclick behavior via Javascript. Sometimes this is useful (like Google Docs) and other times it is stupid ("this jpg is copyright, so you can't save it"). Anyway, the random things might be the fault of the page more than Firefox. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:45 UTC (Wed) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link] (4 responses) No... it's in Firefox. I randomly get 'mail this link to', 'open in a new tab', and other Firefox right-click-menu choices when I right-click, instead of the actual menu. It's especially annoying when I don't already have Thunderbird open, and right-clicking causes it to be opened so I can compose a message I didn't want to send... Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses) Ah that one! Yes I noticed it, especially when Firefox grinds to halt trying to load a webpage or Flash, eating up all the CPU, leading to one possible entrypoint of the problem. I always thought this was because the context menu that would pop up after right-clicking is immediately canceled again by whatever strange firefox/gt logic, like the page having completed loading. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] It's not that, it's a firefox problem. Also notice that when that problem happens, usually the right button continues to do whatever it wants on links until you go to an inactive part of the page and right click on it. After that firefox gets resetted to its normal behaviour, until that problem happens again. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 4, 2009 20:06 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (21 responses) This one segfaults on startup for me, on Debian. I backgraded to 3.0.5 and corresponding xul-runner, and everything's more or less OK again, modulo that after a couple of days it takes, stupidly, five seconds to respond to UI events. I'm resuming 42 windows and hundreds of tabs, so there's no telling which page reload it's tripping over, if indeed it's some particular page. Maybe I'll file a proper bug report with my files. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:57 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (15 responses) OK, I reported it, with lots of details. Response: RESOLVED INVALID This is an issue with a debian build of firefox. You should report it to them, then get it kicked back upstream if it ends up being a firefox thing. Or you could download the official Mozilla build, create a new profile, and try to reproduce with no addons. I'll know better, next time, than to bother reporting a crashing bug to the Mozilla project. Evidently the $millions they're getting from Google aren't paying for support. It's a pity I can't direct that Google money from my web site to go to Debian instead. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 3:26 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link] (14 responses) > I'll know better, next time, than to bother reporting a crashing bug to the Mozilla project. I'm fairly sympathetic to complaints about Mozilla Corp., but not in this case. The response you got was polite, appropriate, and gave good options for what needs to happen next. (I'm assuming that the build in which you experienced the bug *is*, as they said, a Debian build.) If you don't want to go to the bother of obtaining and running the official Mozilla build (I certainly wouldn't), then submit the bug report to Debian. Sorting out whether it's a bug in Debian's build or the upstream is squarely within the role of the Debian iceweasel package maintainer. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:02 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] Refusing to investigate any problems when addons are loaded, when you haven't wiped your entire configuration, and when you haven't downloaded a blessed build (which they almost certain do not test on your distribution) is a good way to ensure that the addon interface is never made solid, that the configuration management is never improved, and that bugs that don't manifest in their build method are never fixed. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:19 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (12 responses) So, somebody whose day job it is to fix crashing-bugs tells me to report it to somebody else whose day job it is not, and then closes the report as "RESOLVED INVALID". That's not earning his keep, however polite he succeeds in seeming. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses) well, if debian shipped the upstream version you may have an argument, but since Debian adamently refuses to do that (the reasons for this are a flame-war for a different time), pointing bug reports at the debian maintainers seems like the right thing to do. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses) ITYM because Debian are not permitted to do that, thanks to the overly zealous way that the for-profit Mozilla Corporation defends its trademarks, which is far more extreme than the trademark policy of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the FSF, KDE, Trolltech (now Nokia), and basically every other open source software vendor I can think of. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (caveat: not words of the employer, just my own) The guy who resolved your bug is a volunteer doing triage. He's doing triage because mozilla has a limited supply of people on paid staff to fix the hundreds of thousands of bugs generated by the hundreds of millions of users using the product. We absolutely value bug reports, but we also have to have -- by necessity -- some sort of system of sorting, categorizing, and (sometimes) turning away bugs as unlikely-fixable, based on a cursory inspection. Goodness knows we'd love to fix all the bugs reachable from our own code. Note the 15,000+ crashdumps we've received due to that dastardly bug holding down the #2 slot in our topcrash list. That's the flash player; not much we can do there. Your situation is back inside the realm of plausible debug-ability, but it's still outside our normal support ballpark, and we're not magicians: starting from a build-we-made and a fresh profile (and uh, not 100+ tabs) is a pretty good first stab at diagnosing. If you consider that an offensive response, I don't know what else to say. We can only focus on so many things at a time, and sorting like this is a necessary part of deciding what to focus on. Put another way: when you go to the hospital, do you take the judgment of the triage nurse there personally? Even if they mark you down as "non-critical, take a tylenol and go home, come back if it gets worse"? Sometimes that's the best they can do with limited resources. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:04 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (4 responses) Do you have flash enabled? I ended up disabling it after it consistently crashed my browser during session restore (10 windows and a few hundred tabs). The UI delay I have a feeling is related to X memory getting fragmented. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 2:24 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses) I really wonder: what do people use their browsers for? Why would anyone need a few hundred tabs open? How do you ever find anything in those tabs? Isn't it quicker, and easier on your computer, to close a tab when you're done, and open a new tab and go back to that web page (google it if need be) when you want it again? When my firefox session crashes with more than about 10 tabs open, I opt to start a new session rather than restore the old one. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:48 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] I use open tabs on my browsers similar to bookmarks. things that I want to go back to 'soon' are left open. there shouldn't be any problem with doing so. the fact that there is indicates some serious bugs inside the codebase. Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 9:49 UTC (Fri) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (1 responses) I've found that Firefox became rather unstable on Linux with 300+ tabs, e.g. IFRAMEs would open in a popup window that when closed crashed Firefox. This was quite repeatable once it started happening. Once I converted the open tabs into links in a web page (there should really be better tools for this, it involved some Perl hacking), and cut back to 50 tabs or less, it was magically much more stable. You can also use Tree Style Tabs extension which makes it easy to bookmark a whole set of tabs. I have found this bug recurs with just 90+ tabs, but nowhere near as often. Clearly there are bugs in this area, but it really helps to cut down the tabs dramatically. Generally Firefox does seem less stable on Linux than Windows, although with Windows when using many Firefox tabs, resource usage by Firefox seems to also make the whole OS less usable (e.g. windows fail to appear), resulting in the need for a Windows reboot. Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:24 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] The IFRAME popup issue is bug 263160. As you've found, closing the popup window causes a crash, however closing the tab the window comes from won't crash. There's a bookmark all tabs command in Firefox, no need for an extension. I guess I could bookmark half my tabs, but the bookmark manager is so useless using tabs works better. Now there's a bug for Mozilla - make bookmarks work for power users, then they wouldn't have these bug reports from people with hundreds of tabs open.
Posted Feb 4, 2009 15:14 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]
Posted Feb 4, 2009 15:53 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] (9 responses)
Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:10 UTC (Wed) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (8 responses) I suppose this is the bug that quickfind forces focus on the firefox window if the quickfind status bar disappears after a timeout. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:36 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (7 responses) I don't think so... Sometimes Firefox does random things on rightclick. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:41 UTC (Wed) by thoffman (guest, #3063) [Link] (6 responses) Do note that some pages modify rightclick behavior via Javascript. Sometimes this is useful (like Google Docs) and other times it is stupid ("this jpg is copyright, so you can't save it"). Anyway, the random things might be the fault of the page more than Firefox. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:45 UTC (Wed) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link] (4 responses) No... it's in Firefox. I randomly get 'mail this link to', 'open in a new tab', and other Firefox right-click-menu choices when I right-click, instead of the actual menu. It's especially annoying when I don't already have Thunderbird open, and right-clicking causes it to be opened so I can compose a message I didn't want to send... Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses) Ah that one! Yes I noticed it, especially when Firefox grinds to halt trying to load a webpage or Flash, eating up all the CPU, leading to one possible entrypoint of the problem. I always thought this was because the context menu that would pop up after right-clicking is immediately canceled again by whatever strange firefox/gt logic, like the page having completed loading. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] It's not that, it's a firefox problem. Also notice that when that problem happens, usually the right button continues to do whatever it wants on links until you go to an inactive part of the page and right click on it. After that firefox gets resetted to its normal behaviour, until that problem happens again.
Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:10 UTC (Wed) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (8 responses)
Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:36 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (7 responses) I don't think so... Sometimes Firefox does random things on rightclick. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:41 UTC (Wed) by thoffman (guest, #3063) [Link] (6 responses) Do note that some pages modify rightclick behavior via Javascript. Sometimes this is useful (like Google Docs) and other times it is stupid ("this jpg is copyright, so you can't save it"). Anyway, the random things might be the fault of the page more than Firefox. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:45 UTC (Wed) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link] (4 responses) No... it's in Firefox. I randomly get 'mail this link to', 'open in a new tab', and other Firefox right-click-menu choices when I right-click, instead of the actual menu. It's especially annoying when I don't already have Thunderbird open, and right-clicking causes it to be opened so I can compose a message I didn't want to send... Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses) Ah that one! Yes I noticed it, especially when Firefox grinds to halt trying to load a webpage or Flash, eating up all the CPU, leading to one possible entrypoint of the problem. I always thought this was because the context menu that would pop up after right-clicking is immediately canceled again by whatever strange firefox/gt logic, like the page having completed loading. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] It's not that, it's a firefox problem. Also notice that when that problem happens, usually the right button continues to do whatever it wants on links until you go to an inactive part of the page and right click on it. After that firefox gets resetted to its normal behaviour, until that problem happens again.
Posted Feb 4, 2009 16:36 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (7 responses)
Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:41 UTC (Wed) by thoffman (guest, #3063) [Link] (6 responses) Do note that some pages modify rightclick behavior via Javascript. Sometimes this is useful (like Google Docs) and other times it is stupid ("this jpg is copyright, so you can't save it"). Anyway, the random things might be the fault of the page more than Firefox. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:45 UTC (Wed) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link] (4 responses) No... it's in Firefox. I randomly get 'mail this link to', 'open in a new tab', and other Firefox right-click-menu choices when I right-click, instead of the actual menu. It's especially annoying when I don't already have Thunderbird open, and right-clicking causes it to be opened so I can compose a message I didn't want to send... Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses) Ah that one! Yes I noticed it, especially when Firefox grinds to halt trying to load a webpage or Flash, eating up all the CPU, leading to one possible entrypoint of the problem. I always thought this was because the context menu that would pop up after right-clicking is immediately canceled again by whatever strange firefox/gt logic, like the page having completed loading. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] It's not that, it's a firefox problem. Also notice that when that problem happens, usually the right button continues to do whatever it wants on links until you go to an inactive part of the page and right click on it. After that firefox gets resetted to its normal behaviour, until that problem happens again.
Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:41 UTC (Wed) by thoffman (guest, #3063) [Link] (6 responses)
Anyway, the random things might be the fault of the page more than Firefox.
Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:45 UTC (Wed) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link] (4 responses) No... it's in Firefox. I randomly get 'mail this link to', 'open in a new tab', and other Firefox right-click-menu choices when I right-click, instead of the actual menu. It's especially annoying when I don't already have Thunderbird open, and right-clicking causes it to be opened so I can compose a message I didn't want to send... Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses) Ah that one! Yes I noticed it, especially when Firefox grinds to halt trying to load a webpage or Flash, eating up all the CPU, leading to one possible entrypoint of the problem. I always thought this was because the context menu that would pop up after right-clicking is immediately canceled again by whatever strange firefox/gt logic, like the page having completed loading. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link] It's not that, it's a firefox problem. Also notice that when that problem happens, usually the right button continues to do whatever it wants on links until you go to an inactive part of the page and right click on it. After that firefox gets resetted to its normal behaviour, until that problem happens again.
Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:45 UTC (Wed) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link] (4 responses)
Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses) Ah that one! Yes I noticed it, especially when Firefox grinds to halt trying to load a webpage or Flash, eating up all the CPU, leading to one possible entrypoint of the problem. I always thought this was because the context menu that would pop up after right-clicking is immediately canceled again by whatever strange firefox/gt logic, like the page having completed loading. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:46 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] (3 responses)
Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] I don't think so, I've seen the issue several times with Firefox completely at rest. Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] what I've seen is that if there is significant load (including when firefox looses it's mind and has one thread spinning in a loop) you can't even type into it as it will sometimes put the new character before the cursor position instead of after (so you type abcd and it may come out dcba), what's worse is that it's not even consistant, you have to check after each character you type to see if it appeared before or after the cursor (interestingly enough, if you paste text in with the mouse you don't have this problem) Firefox 3.0.6 released Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I have noticed myself that when this happens the context menu is not shown, but if you hold the right mouse button down (instead of releasing it immediately) it pops up after a second or two.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:50 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]
Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:02 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
Posted Feb 5, 2009 9:13 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
Posted Feb 4, 2009 20:06 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (21 responses)
I'm resuming 42 windows and hundreds of tabs, so there's no telling which page reload it's tripping over, if indeed it's some particular page. Maybe I'll file a proper bug report with my files.
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:57 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (15 responses) OK, I reported it, with lots of details. Response: RESOLVED INVALID This is an issue with a debian build of firefox. You should report it to them, then get it kicked back upstream if it ends up being a firefox thing. Or you could download the official Mozilla build, create a new profile, and try to reproduce with no addons. I'll know better, next time, than to bother reporting a crashing bug to the Mozilla project. Evidently the $millions they're getting from Google aren't paying for support. It's a pity I can't direct that Google money from my web site to go to Debian instead. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 3:26 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link] (14 responses) > I'll know better, next time, than to bother reporting a crashing bug to the Mozilla project. I'm fairly sympathetic to complaints about Mozilla Corp., but not in this case. The response you got was polite, appropriate, and gave good options for what needs to happen next. (I'm assuming that the build in which you experienced the bug *is*, as they said, a Debian build.) If you don't want to go to the bother of obtaining and running the official Mozilla build (I certainly wouldn't), then submit the bug report to Debian. Sorting out whether it's a bug in Debian's build or the upstream is squarely within the role of the Debian iceweasel package maintainer. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:02 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] Refusing to investigate any problems when addons are loaded, when you haven't wiped your entire configuration, and when you haven't downloaded a blessed build (which they almost certain do not test on your distribution) is a good way to ensure that the addon interface is never made solid, that the configuration management is never improved, and that bugs that don't manifest in their build method are never fixed. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:19 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (12 responses) So, somebody whose day job it is to fix crashing-bugs tells me to report it to somebody else whose day job it is not, and then closes the report as "RESOLVED INVALID". That's not earning his keep, however polite he succeeds in seeming. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses) well, if debian shipped the upstream version you may have an argument, but since Debian adamently refuses to do that (the reasons for this are a flame-war for a different time), pointing bug reports at the debian maintainers seems like the right thing to do. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses) ITYM because Debian are not permitted to do that, thanks to the overly zealous way that the for-profit Mozilla Corporation defends its trademarks, which is far more extreme than the trademark policy of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the FSF, KDE, Trolltech (now Nokia), and basically every other open source software vendor I can think of. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (caveat: not words of the employer, just my own) The guy who resolved your bug is a volunteer doing triage. He's doing triage because mozilla has a limited supply of people on paid staff to fix the hundreds of thousands of bugs generated by the hundreds of millions of users using the product. We absolutely value bug reports, but we also have to have -- by necessity -- some sort of system of sorting, categorizing, and (sometimes) turning away bugs as unlikely-fixable, based on a cursory inspection. Goodness knows we'd love to fix all the bugs reachable from our own code. Note the 15,000+ crashdumps we've received due to that dastardly bug holding down the #2 slot in our topcrash list. That's the flash player; not much we can do there. Your situation is back inside the realm of plausible debug-ability, but it's still outside our normal support ballpark, and we're not magicians: starting from a build-we-made and a fresh profile (and uh, not 100+ tabs) is a pretty good first stab at diagnosing. If you consider that an offensive response, I don't know what else to say. We can only focus on so many things at a time, and sorting like this is a necessary part of deciding what to focus on. Put another way: when you go to the hospital, do you take the judgment of the triage nurse there personally? Even if they mark you down as "non-critical, take a tylenol and go home, come back if it gets worse"? Sometimes that's the best they can do with limited resources. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:04 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (4 responses) Do you have flash enabled? I ended up disabling it after it consistently crashed my browser during session restore (10 windows and a few hundred tabs). The UI delay I have a feeling is related to X memory getting fragmented. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 2:24 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses) I really wonder: what do people use their browsers for? Why would anyone need a few hundred tabs open? How do you ever find anything in those tabs? Isn't it quicker, and easier on your computer, to close a tab when you're done, and open a new tab and go back to that web page (google it if need be) when you want it again? When my firefox session crashes with more than about 10 tabs open, I opt to start a new session rather than restore the old one. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:48 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] I use open tabs on my browsers similar to bookmarks. things that I want to go back to 'soon' are left open. there shouldn't be any problem with doing so. the fact that there is indicates some serious bugs inside the codebase. Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 9:49 UTC (Fri) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (1 responses) I've found that Firefox became rather unstable on Linux with 300+ tabs, e.g. IFRAMEs would open in a popup window that when closed crashed Firefox. This was quite repeatable once it started happening. Once I converted the open tabs into links in a web page (there should really be better tools for this, it involved some Perl hacking), and cut back to 50 tabs or less, it was magically much more stable. You can also use Tree Style Tabs extension which makes it easy to bookmark a whole set of tabs. I have found this bug recurs with just 90+ tabs, but nowhere near as often. Clearly there are bugs in this area, but it really helps to cut down the tabs dramatically. Generally Firefox does seem less stable on Linux than Windows, although with Windows when using many Firefox tabs, resource usage by Firefox seems to also make the whole OS less usable (e.g. windows fail to appear), resulting in the need for a Windows reboot. Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:24 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] The IFRAME popup issue is bug 263160. As you've found, closing the popup window causes a crash, however closing the tab the window comes from won't crash. There's a bookmark all tabs command in Firefox, no need for an extension. I guess I could bookmark half my tabs, but the bookmark manager is so useless using tabs works better. Now there's a bug for Mozilla - make bookmarks work for power users, then they wouldn't have these bug reports from people with hundreds of tabs open.
Posted Feb 4, 2009 23:57 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (15 responses)
RESOLVED INVALID This is an issue with a debian build of firefox. You should report it to them, then get it kicked back upstream if it ends up being a firefox thing. Or you could download the official Mozilla build, create a new profile, and try to reproduce with no addons.
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 3:26 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link] (14 responses) > I'll know better, next time, than to bother reporting a crashing bug to the Mozilla project. I'm fairly sympathetic to complaints about Mozilla Corp., but not in this case. The response you got was polite, appropriate, and gave good options for what needs to happen next. (I'm assuming that the build in which you experienced the bug *is*, as they said, a Debian build.) If you don't want to go to the bother of obtaining and running the official Mozilla build (I certainly wouldn't), then submit the bug report to Debian. Sorting out whether it's a bug in Debian's build or the upstream is squarely within the role of the Debian iceweasel package maintainer. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:02 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] Refusing to investigate any problems when addons are loaded, when you haven't wiped your entire configuration, and when you haven't downloaded a blessed build (which they almost certain do not test on your distribution) is a good way to ensure that the addon interface is never made solid, that the configuration management is never improved, and that bugs that don't manifest in their build method are never fixed. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:19 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (12 responses) So, somebody whose day job it is to fix crashing-bugs tells me to report it to somebody else whose day job it is not, and then closes the report as "RESOLVED INVALID". That's not earning his keep, however polite he succeeds in seeming. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses) well, if debian shipped the upstream version you may have an argument, but since Debian adamently refuses to do that (the reasons for this are a flame-war for a different time), pointing bug reports at the debian maintainers seems like the right thing to do. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses) ITYM because Debian are not permitted to do that, thanks to the overly zealous way that the for-profit Mozilla Corporation defends its trademarks, which is far more extreme than the trademark policy of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the FSF, KDE, Trolltech (now Nokia), and basically every other open source software vendor I can think of. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (caveat: not words of the employer, just my own) The guy who resolved your bug is a volunteer doing triage. He's doing triage because mozilla has a limited supply of people on paid staff to fix the hundreds of thousands of bugs generated by the hundreds of millions of users using the product. We absolutely value bug reports, but we also have to have -- by necessity -- some sort of system of sorting, categorizing, and (sometimes) turning away bugs as unlikely-fixable, based on a cursory inspection. Goodness knows we'd love to fix all the bugs reachable from our own code. Note the 15,000+ crashdumps we've received due to that dastardly bug holding down the #2 slot in our topcrash list. That's the flash player; not much we can do there. Your situation is back inside the realm of plausible debug-ability, but it's still outside our normal support ballpark, and we're not magicians: starting from a build-we-made and a fresh profile (and uh, not 100+ tabs) is a pretty good first stab at diagnosing. If you consider that an offensive response, I don't know what else to say. We can only focus on so many things at a time, and sorting like this is a necessary part of deciding what to focus on. Put another way: when you go to the hospital, do you take the judgment of the triage nurse there personally? Even if they mark you down as "non-critical, take a tylenol and go home, come back if it gets worse"? Sometimes that's the best they can do with limited resources.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 3:26 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link] (14 responses)
I'm fairly sympathetic to complaints about Mozilla Corp., but not in this case. The response you got was polite, appropriate, and gave good options for what needs to happen next. (I'm assuming that the build in which you experienced the bug *is*, as they said, a Debian build.)
If you don't want to go to the bother of obtaining and running the official Mozilla build (I certainly wouldn't), then submit the bug report to Debian. Sorting out whether it's a bug in Debian's build or the upstream is squarely within the role of the Debian iceweasel package maintainer.
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:02 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] Refusing to investigate any problems when addons are loaded, when you haven't wiped your entire configuration, and when you haven't downloaded a blessed build (which they almost certain do not test on your distribution) is a good way to ensure that the addon interface is never made solid, that the configuration management is never improved, and that bugs that don't manifest in their build method are never fixed. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:19 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (12 responses) So, somebody whose day job it is to fix crashing-bugs tells me to report it to somebody else whose day job it is not, and then closes the report as "RESOLVED INVALID". That's not earning his keep, however polite he succeeds in seeming. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses) well, if debian shipped the upstream version you may have an argument, but since Debian adamently refuses to do that (the reasons for this are a flame-war for a different time), pointing bug reports at the debian maintainers seems like the right thing to do. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses) ITYM because Debian are not permitted to do that, thanks to the overly zealous way that the for-profit Mozilla Corporation defends its trademarks, which is far more extreme than the trademark policy of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the FSF, KDE, Trolltech (now Nokia), and basically every other open source software vendor I can think of. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (caveat: not words of the employer, just my own) The guy who resolved your bug is a volunteer doing triage. He's doing triage because mozilla has a limited supply of people on paid staff to fix the hundreds of thousands of bugs generated by the hundreds of millions of users using the product. We absolutely value bug reports, but we also have to have -- by necessity -- some sort of system of sorting, categorizing, and (sometimes) turning away bugs as unlikely-fixable, based on a cursory inspection. Goodness knows we'd love to fix all the bugs reachable from our own code. Note the 15,000+ crashdumps we've received due to that dastardly bug holding down the #2 slot in our topcrash list. That's the flash player; not much we can do there. Your situation is back inside the realm of plausible debug-ability, but it's still outside our normal support ballpark, and we're not magicians: starting from a build-we-made and a fresh profile (and uh, not 100+ tabs) is a pretty good first stab at diagnosing. If you consider that an offensive response, I don't know what else to say. We can only focus on so many things at a time, and sorting like this is a necessary part of deciding what to focus on. Put another way: when you go to the hospital, do you take the judgment of the triage nurse there personally? Even if they mark you down as "non-critical, take a tylenol and go home, come back if it gets worse"? Sometimes that's the best they can do with limited resources.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:02 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]
Posted Feb 5, 2009 5:19 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (12 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses) well, if debian shipped the upstream version you may have an argument, but since Debian adamently refuses to do that (the reasons for this are a flame-war for a different time), pointing bug reports at the debian maintainers seems like the right thing to do. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses) ITYM because Debian are not permitted to do that, thanks to the overly zealous way that the for-profit Mozilla Corporation defends its trademarks, which is far more extreme than the trademark policy of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the FSF, KDE, Trolltech (now Nokia), and basically every other open source software vendor I can think of. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (caveat: not words of the employer, just my own) The guy who resolved your bug is a volunteer doing triage. He's doing triage because mozilla has a limited supply of people on paid staff to fix the hundreds of thousands of bugs generated by the hundreds of millions of users using the product. We absolutely value bug reports, but we also have to have -- by necessity -- some sort of system of sorting, categorizing, and (sometimes) turning away bugs as unlikely-fixable, based on a cursory inspection. Goodness knows we'd love to fix all the bugs reachable from our own code. Note the 15,000+ crashdumps we've received due to that dastardly bug holding down the #2 slot in our topcrash list. That's the flash player; not much we can do there. Your situation is back inside the realm of plausible debug-ability, but it's still outside our normal support ballpark, and we're not magicians: starting from a build-we-made and a fresh profile (and uh, not 100+ tabs) is a pretty good first stab at diagnosing. If you consider that an offensive response, I don't know what else to say. We can only focus on so many things at a time, and sorting like this is a necessary part of deciding what to focus on. Put another way: when you go to the hospital, do you take the judgment of the triage nurse there personally? Even if they mark you down as "non-critical, take a tylenol and go home, come back if it gets worse"? Sometimes that's the best they can do with limited resources.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:51 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses) ITYM because Debian are not permitted to do that, thanks to the overly zealous way that the for-profit Mozilla Corporation defends its trademarks, which is far more extreme than the trademark policy of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the FSF, KDE, Trolltech (now Nokia), and basically every other open source software vendor I can think of. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (9 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses) No, Debian is allowed to ship the unmodified version, what they are not able to do is to modify it without the sign-off of the Mozilla Corp and call the result Firefox Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses) AIUI, the unfortunate fact is that Mozilla is more zealous than those other guys not because they are for-profit (that's just a legal hack anyway, the for-profit part is wholly owned by the non-profit part), but because Mozilla's *way more successful* than all those other guys. They have an order of magnitude more brand value to protect, and it faces a completely different set of attacks than any FOSS project has faced before. Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example. (But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?) (I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.) Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses) That is sort of like permitting you to break the law. Debian is free to either not ship mozilla as provided upstream, or violate their own bylaws and principles. Since these principles are completely reasonable, and the bylaws are completely reasonable, your framing is kind of silly. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (4 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses) no, they have one other choice, work with upstream to have upstream sign-off on their patches. they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable. and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version? so three choices 1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws) 2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important) 3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project) they choose to do #3 Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)
they choose not to do that (which they have a perfect right to do), but then to complain that upstream is not supporting the debian changes is unreasonable.
and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream version?
so three choices
1. ship the upstream and get support from upstream developers with bug reports (but possibly violating debian bylaws)
2. get patches approved by upstream and ship the result, getting support from upstream developers with bug reports (painful coordination needed, there is a possibility that upstream will not sign off on a patch that debian feels is important)
3. fork the project, remove the mozilla trademarks, and do all the support themselves (as is normal with any other forked project)
they choose to do #3
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses) #2 isn't feasible as Mozilla withdraws support for old Firefox versions before Debian finishes supporting them - etch has 2.0.0.19 and will be supported for a least another year, while Mozilla stopped supporting 2 late last year. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > and exactly what bylaws would they have violated by shipping the upstream > version? Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:16 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] in at least one case the 'support' of the old version by debian was to repackage a newer version under the old version number. they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all. as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
they have said that there are too many important changes in the new versions to backport them all.
as such, claims that they can't ship the upstream becouse of support end of life doesn't sound reasonable.
Posted Feb 8, 2009 10:39 UTC (Sun) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
Social Contract -> DFSG -> 3. Derived Works:
"The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."
Firefox's license does not permit its artwork to be modified. The official builds also include various other proprietary components, such as the crash reporting mechanism.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 6:10 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)
Or put another way, if there were websites popping up all the time that were selling people PostgreSQL for $30 (marked down from $50! what a deal! pay no attention to the added spyware!), I bet the Postgres folks would start worrying about the legal minutiae of trademark enforcement real quick. For example.
(But wouldn't it be awesome to live in the world where they had that problem?)
(I'm sure that in the long run there are better approaches to this and by the time PostgreSQL gets there we'll know what they are, but in the mean time attacking our most successful projects *because* they are so successful that they run into new challenges is not helping us get there. And I say all this as someone who tends to think that Debian also made the right decision.)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses) Yes, perhaps you are right (I disagree but I can see the argument and why it would make sense), but it doesn't sit well with me that Mozilla software is only free software (in the sense that the recipient has the right to modify it) when stripped of all branding, *but then Debian get a lot of flak for doing so*. Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them.
Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:20 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (1 responses)
Their only other option was to ship Firefox in non-free, unless they felt like rewriting the social contract to allow for restrictions on what users could do with the software in main - not exactly likely to go down well either; it's not like they were just being obstructive for the sake of it.
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] if you go back to the beginning of this thread you will see that the flack was not because Debian stripped the branding, but because users were then trying to go to mozilla for support instead of to Debian and getting upset at the mozilla people for not supporting them.
Posted Feb 9, 2009 11:31 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:07 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link]
The guy who resolved your bug is a volunteer doing triage. He's doing triage because mozilla has a limited supply of people on paid staff to fix the hundreds of thousands of bugs generated by the hundreds of millions of users using the product. We absolutely value bug reports, but we also have to have -- by necessity -- some sort of system of sorting, categorizing, and (sometimes) turning away bugs as unlikely-fixable, based on a cursory inspection.
Goodness knows we'd love to fix all the bugs reachable from our own code. Note the 15,000+ crashdumps we've received due to that dastardly bug holding down the #2 slot in our topcrash list. That's the flash player; not much we can do there. Your situation is back inside the realm of plausible debug-ability, but it's still outside our normal support ballpark, and we're not magicians: starting from a build-we-made and a fresh profile (and uh, not 100+ tabs) is a pretty good first stab at diagnosing. If you consider that an offensive response, I don't know what else to say. We can only focus on so many things at a time, and sorting like this is a necessary part of deciding what to focus on.
Put another way: when you go to the hospital, do you take the judgment of the triage nurse there personally? Even if they mark you down as "non-critical, take a tylenol and go home, come back if it gets worse"? Sometimes that's the best they can do with limited resources.
Posted Feb 5, 2009 8:04 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (4 responses)
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 2:24 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses) I really wonder: what do people use their browsers for? Why would anyone need a few hundred tabs open? How do you ever find anything in those tabs? Isn't it quicker, and easier on your computer, to close a tab when you're done, and open a new tab and go back to that web page (google it if need be) when you want it again? When my firefox session crashes with more than about 10 tabs open, I opt to start a new session rather than restore the old one. Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:48 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] I use open tabs on my browsers similar to bookmarks. things that I want to go back to 'soon' are left open. there shouldn't be any problem with doing so. the fact that there is indicates some serious bugs inside the codebase. Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 9:49 UTC (Fri) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (1 responses) I've found that Firefox became rather unstable on Linux with 300+ tabs, e.g. IFRAMEs would open in a popup window that when closed crashed Firefox. This was quite repeatable once it started happening. Once I converted the open tabs into links in a web page (there should really be better tools for this, it involved some Perl hacking), and cut back to 50 tabs or less, it was magically much more stable. You can also use Tree Style Tabs extension which makes it easy to bookmark a whole set of tabs. I have found this bug recurs with just 90+ tabs, but nowhere near as often. Clearly there are bugs in this area, but it really helps to cut down the tabs dramatically. Generally Firefox does seem less stable on Linux than Windows, although with Windows when using many Firefox tabs, resource usage by Firefox seems to also make the whole OS less usable (e.g. windows fail to appear), resulting in the need for a Windows reboot. Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:24 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] The IFRAME popup issue is bug 263160. As you've found, closing the popup window causes a crash, however closing the tab the window comes from won't crash. There's a bookmark all tabs command in Firefox, no need for an extension. I guess I could bookmark half my tabs, but the bookmark manager is so useless using tabs works better. Now there's a bug for Mozilla - make bookmarks work for power users, then they wouldn't have these bug reports from people with hundreds of tabs open.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 2:24 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)
When my firefox session crashes with more than about 10 tabs open, I opt to start a new session rather than restore the old one.
Crash crash crash Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:48 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] I use open tabs on my browsers similar to bookmarks. things that I want to go back to 'soon' are left open. there shouldn't be any problem with doing so. the fact that there is indicates some serious bugs inside the codebase.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 3:48 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
there shouldn't be any problem with doing so. the fact that there is indicates some serious bugs inside the codebase.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 9:49 UTC (Fri) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (1 responses)
Once I converted the open tabs into links in a web page (there should really be better tools for this, it involved some Perl hacking), and cut back to 50 tabs or less, it was magically much more stable. You can also use Tree Style Tabs extension which makes it easy to bookmark a whole set of tabs.
I have found this bug recurs with just 90+ tabs, but nowhere near as often. Clearly there are bugs in this area, but it really helps to cut down the tabs dramatically.
Generally Firefox does seem less stable on Linux than Windows, although with Windows when using many Firefox tabs, resource usage by Firefox seems to also make the whole OS less usable (e.g. windows fail to appear), resulting in the need for a Windows reboot.
Firefox stability with many tabs Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:24 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] The IFRAME popup issue is bug 263160. As you've found, closing the popup window causes a crash, however closing the tab the window comes from won't crash. There's a bookmark all tabs command in Firefox, no need for an extension. I guess I could bookmark half my tabs, but the bookmark manager is so useless using tabs works better. Now there's a bug for Mozilla - make bookmarks work for power users, then they wouldn't have these bug reports from people with hundreds of tabs open.
Posted Feb 6, 2009 11:24 UTC (Fri) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link]
There's a bookmark all tabs command in Firefox, no need for an extension. I guess I could bookmark half my tabs, but the bookmark manager is so useless using tabs works better. Now there's a bug for Mozilla - make bookmarks work for power users, then they wouldn't have these bug reports from people with hundreds of tabs open.
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