Re: Fedora Linux 38 blocker status summary

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Neal Gompa wrote:
> We're not getting rid of Firefox.

At least that is an answer, unlike the complete radio silence on:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1920298

Still does not explain why Firefox has to be the default though.

But the thing is, this inevitably leads to:
* unnecessarily including a redundant web engine on the Spin (because, as I 
explained, QtWebEngine cannot go away), a huge package increasing the 
download size for all users of the Spin, whether they want Firefox or not,
* a non-native browser experience (with controls/widgets based on the XUL 
implementation and the GTK look&feel) instead of a native Qt/KDE one, and
* a hindrance in getting critical QtWebEngine showstoppers fixed in time for 
the release, because they are not considered Blockers if they do not affect 
the default browser:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2001261#c7

> It's the premier open source browser,

That is arguable, considering that Chromium is also Open Source (*) and that 
there are many users of Chromium derivatives (though not necessarily Open 
Source (*) ones).

But either way, it is not a KDE browser. The KDE Spin should be about 
shipping KDE applications wherever possible.

> well-supported

So is QtWebEngine. Chromium gets a lot of development, and Qt backports 
security fixes and important bug fixes to the stable QtWebEngine branches. 
Even the LTS releases of QtWebEngine are publicly available under the LGPL 
from git.qt.io.

> and well-liked by the community,

So "well-liked" that it has a fraction of the market share of Chrome and 
other Chromium-based browsers nowadays.

I think there need to be more objective criteria for picking a default 
browser than allegedly being "well-liked by the community".

> and most things on the Internet will at least accept Firefox as a browser.

"Most things on the Internet" will also accept any Chromium-based browser, 
such as Falkon. The latest QtWebEngine is in fact more standards-compliant 
than Firefox, see the evidence under:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1920298

Falkon even works for some sites that only officially support Chrome and do 
not work with Firefox. (E.g., the Microsoft Teams web interface. Last I 
checked, when I tried it with Firefox, it offered me only to download the 
desktop client. With Falkon, I can connect in the browser just fine.)

Now, admittedly, one issue is that Falkon is currently stuck on QtWebEngine 
5, hence on 5.15 LTS, which gets security backports, but not feature 
backports, so a handful websites are now causing problems with it. (It is 
unfortunate that the web has evolved to such a moving target that web 
developers are unwilling to support even supported LTS versions of browsers. 
They are also complaining about having to support Safari iOS branches, 
Firefox ESR, etc.) For Falkon, that issue should be solved as soon as a Qt 6 
port of Falkon is released.

> It also works on all Fedora architectures, unlike anything Chromium-based.

QtWebEngine works on all architectures for which a Fedora KDE deliverable is 
actually shipped:
* The KDE Spin is shipped only for x86_64 on the main mirrors.
* On alt.fedoraproject.org, the KDE Spin is shipped only for aarch64.
* Kinoite is shipped only for x86_64 and aarch64.

So the KDE Spin needs to support only x86_64 and aarch64, both of which are 
fully supported by QtWebEngine (and we also build -freeworld for both of 
them at that other repository nowadays, I fixed that a couple years ago).

        Kevin Kofler

(*) I personally prefer the term "Free Software", but since you talked about 
the "premier open source browser", I am replying with your terms.
_______________________________________________
devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue




[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[Index of Archives]     [Fedora Announce]     [Fedora Users]     [Fedora Kernel]     [Fedora Testing]     [Fedora Formulas]     [Fedora PHP Devel]     [Kernel Development]     [Fedora Legacy]     [Fedora Maintainers]     [Fedora Desktop]     [PAM]     [Red Hat Development]     [Gimp]     [Yosemite News]

  Powered by Linux