Re: "Patch" / modification for https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Sun, 24 Sep 2023 13:37:00 -0400
bill-auger <bill-auger@peers.community> wrote:
> > <p>
> >   Icecat is maintained only is source form. We no longer distribute
> > binary packages. </p>  
As I understand that is not sufficient to get a binary that has the
latest security fixes, and that is precisely why Guix uses both Icecat
and Firefox source code.

Maybe a bigger issue is explained by the longer package description of
the Guix package that I should probably have taken into account before
sending this "Patch":
> IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser.  It is entirely
> free software, which does not recommend non-free plugins
> and addons.  It also features built-in privacy-protecting features.
>
> [...]
> 
> WARNING: IceCat 102 has not yet been released by the upstream IceCat
> project.  This is a preview release, and does not currently meet the
> privacy-respecting standards of the IceCat project.

So I'm unsure of what the difference is between older IceCat and newer
ones but that can be a problem if users are expecting something like an
FSDG compliant version of the Tor Browser while Guix IceCat doesn't
even use Tor.

Maybe asking for help and explaining the current situation would work
instead?

Here we could explain that IceCat is not dead and that there is
constant developments and that Guix uses it to provides an up to date
package (so we show it is very useful), but that there were not real
releases because the latest source code only has a subset of the privacy
features Icecat used to have, and that the IceCat project badly needs
more contributors to make a real release and fix this dilemma situation.

Denis.

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