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Agreed - I think it is weird a distro would do this. To me, these sorts of tools are reserved for app owners who want to make the trade off to hit more distros

Agreed - I think it is weird a distro would do this. To me, these sorts of tools are reserved for app owners who want to make the trade off to hit more distros more easily with known trade offs. Distro owners have a full pkg management system and this should be integrated into that, like it was previously.

rubyist5eva 4y ago
The distro (canonical/Ubuntu) didn’t do it: Mozilla did.
- ghostly_s 4y ago
  Source? Why would they do so only on Ubuntu?
  - rubyist5eva 4y ago
    My guess is that Ubuntu (and derivatives) is the only major distribution that installs snapd by default. > Source? https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feature-freeze-exception-seeding-the-official-firefox-snap-in-ubuntu-desktop/24210?u=d0od https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feature-freeze-exception-seed...
  - kd913 4y ago
    https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/09/ubuntu-makes-firefox-snap-default https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/09/ubuntu-makes-firefox-sna... The reason probably being that for Canonical and Mozilla, it is a pain to support/backport multiple ubuntu versions, so why not just support 1 build. It makes it simpler for them to release as it's directly integrated in their build system. Considering how small a percentage linux users are, it isn't an illogical decision.
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      That's a highly commercial story they're telling there. It's all PR. I'd bet that it was canonical who approached Mozilla and offered compensation. After all Mozilla is always looking for money. If offering a Deb is such a major issue for Mozilla, why are they still offering a distro-agnostic one that works just fine? This whole story just doesn't make sense but fits in perfectly with Canonical's obsession with making snap a success.
      - blihp 4y ago
        Ubuntu has been looking for ways to differentiate themselves (and arguably lock users in) for many years and Snap is their latest go at it. Consider that Debian (i.e. Ubuntu's upstream) has been providing Firefox .debs for a very long time, so it takes effort not to offer .debs for it on a Debian derivative.
        siwatanejo 4y ago
        Debian providing Firefox debs for a long time? I think you are very wrong because Firefox is not even called this way in Debian, it's IceWeasel.
        blihp 4y ago
        Your information is outdated. It hasn't been called IceWeasel for a while now and that only had to do with a trademark issue[1] but it was still based on the Firefox sources. Source: running Firefox via .deb (firefox-esr in the Debian repo) on Debian stable to write this. [1] IIRC, it had to do with using the Firefox name even though Debian was lightly modifying sources to remove a couple of things. This was resolved a while ago and the Firefox branding resumed.
        rubyist5eva 4y ago
        Last time I tried Debian they only provided packages for the current ESR release - Canonical wants to provide the latest stable release.
      - kyrofa 4y ago
        Ding ding!
      - rubyist5eva 4y ago
        Mozilla doesn't directly offer a .deb file. They offer precompiled binary tarballs for Linux. Mozilla doesn't make distribution specific packages as far as I am aware and it was Canonical that was packaging it for all of their supported distributions. It's less work for Canonical now to package Firefox, and Mozilla has more control over pushing updates so it's mutually beneficial for them.
    - gnufx 4y ago
      Fedora, a volunteer project, currently has packages for four different current and future releases.
      - rubyist5eva 4y ago
        Which is crazy because Mozilla provides an official flatpak and Fedora has flatpak installed by default, but if Fedora developers want to be masochists they are free to do so.
        vetinari 4y ago
        Fedora build is slightly different that the upstream one; in a way that many FOSS users appreciate: https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/1518 https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/1518 Additionally, it is being done by the same folks who drive development of linux-specific features (like wayland support or video decoding acceleration) anyway.
        rstat1 4y ago
        Ah I always wondered why Firefox releases on my Fedora installs lagged behind official ones. Its so they can screw with it instead of just shipping what Mozilla released.
        vetinari 4y ago
        The "screwing with it" does not take much time. Building the binaries themselves do. Mozilla does it few days in advance, so at the release they can push everything (and the binaries are available on the ftp.mozilla.org day before, uusually around 16:00 UTC). Other parties can start building their binaries only after the release. In case of Fedora, it is pushed into the testing stream and only after positive feedback (or few days) it is pushed into the release. If you want it earlier, you can get the tested builds from bodhi (bodhi.fedoraproject.org). You can also see the status of all builds there.
      - phatfish 4y ago
        Humm, Fedora is the source for CentOS and RHEL. Surely most of the contributions to Fedora come from people employed by Red Hat?
    - ghostly_s 4y ago
      > Why? Mozilla asked for it apparently: > “This is the result of cooperation and collaboration between the [Ubuntu] Desktop and Snap teams at Canonical and Mozilla developers, and is the first step towards a deb-to-snap transition that will take place during the 22.04 development cycle,” Ubuntu desktop team’s Ken VanDine explains in a Discourse post. This quote does not in any way support the claim that "Mozilla asked for it". Maybe find better sources for your info.
stubish 4y ago
'hit more distros' also means hitting old distro releases. We have a laptop here running a nearly EOL LTS version of Ubuntu, but thanks to the snap packaging is still running the latest release of Firefox (the most important piece of software on this machine).

rubyist5eva 4y ago

The distro (canonical/Ubuntu) didn’t do it: Mozilla did.

ghostly_s 4y ago
Source? Why would they do so only on Ubuntu?
- rubyist5eva 4y ago
  My guess is that Ubuntu (and derivatives) is the only major distribution that installs snapd by default. > Source? https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feature-freeze-exception-seeding-the-official-firefox-snap-in-ubuntu-desktop/24210?u=d0od https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feature-freeze-exception-seed...
- kd913 4y ago
  https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/09/ubuntu-makes-firefox-snap-default https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/09/ubuntu-makes-firefox-sna... The reason probably being that for Canonical and Mozilla, it is a pain to support/backport multiple ubuntu versions, so why not just support 1 build. It makes it simpler for them to release as it's directly integrated in their build system. Considering how small a percentage linux users are, it isn't an illogical decision.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    That's a highly commercial story they're telling there. It's all PR. I'd bet that it was canonical who approached Mozilla and offered compensation. After all Mozilla is always looking for money. If offering a Deb is such a major issue for Mozilla, why are they still offering a distro-agnostic one that works just fine? This whole story just doesn't make sense but fits in perfectly with Canonical's obsession with making snap a success.
    - blihp 4y ago
      Ubuntu has been looking for ways to differentiate themselves (and arguably lock users in) for many years and Snap is their latest go at it. Consider that Debian (i.e. Ubuntu's upstream) has been providing Firefox .debs for a very long time, so it takes effort not to offer .debs for it on a Debian derivative.
      - siwatanejo 4y ago
        Debian providing Firefox debs for a long time? I think you are very wrong because Firefox is not even called this way in Debian, it's IceWeasel.
        blihp 4y ago
        Your information is outdated. It hasn't been called IceWeasel for a while now and that only had to do with a trademark issue[1] but it was still based on the Firefox sources. Source: running Firefox via .deb (firefox-esr in the Debian repo) on Debian stable to write this. [1] IIRC, it had to do with using the Firefox name even though Debian was lightly modifying sources to remove a couple of things. This was resolved a while ago and the Firefox branding resumed.
        rubyist5eva 4y ago
        Last time I tried Debian they only provided packages for the current ESR release - Canonical wants to provide the latest stable release.
    - kyrofa 4y ago
      Ding ding!
    - rubyist5eva 4y ago
      Mozilla doesn't directly offer a .deb file. They offer precompiled binary tarballs for Linux. Mozilla doesn't make distribution specific packages as far as I am aware and it was Canonical that was packaging it for all of their supported distributions. It's less work for Canonical now to package Firefox, and Mozilla has more control over pushing updates so it's mutually beneficial for them.
  - gnufx 4y ago
    Fedora, a volunteer project, currently has packages for four different current and future releases.
    - rubyist5eva 4y ago
      Which is crazy because Mozilla provides an official flatpak and Fedora has flatpak installed by default, but if Fedora developers want to be masochists they are free to do so.
      - vetinari 4y ago
        Fedora build is slightly different that the upstream one; in a way that many FOSS users appreciate: https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/1518 https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/1518 Additionally, it is being done by the same folks who drive development of linux-specific features (like wayland support or video decoding acceleration) anyway.
        rstat1 4y ago
        Ah I always wondered why Firefox releases on my Fedora installs lagged behind official ones. Its so they can screw with it instead of just shipping what Mozilla released.
        vetinari 4y ago
        The "screwing with it" does not take much time. Building the binaries themselves do. Mozilla does it few days in advance, so at the release they can push everything (and the binaries are available on the ftp.mozilla.org day before, uusually around 16:00 UTC). Other parties can start building their binaries only after the release. In case of Fedora, it is pushed into the testing stream and only after positive feedback (or few days) it is pushed into the release. If you want it earlier, you can get the tested builds from bodhi (bodhi.fedoraproject.org). You can also see the status of all builds there.
    - phatfish 4y ago
      Humm, Fedora is the source for CentOS and RHEL. Surely most of the contributions to Fedora come from people employed by Red Hat?
  - ghostly_s 4y ago
    > Why? Mozilla asked for it apparently: > “This is the result of cooperation and collaboration between the [Ubuntu] Desktop and Snap teams at Canonical and Mozilla developers, and is the first step towards a deb-to-snap transition that will take place during the 22.04 development cycle,” Ubuntu desktop team’s Ken VanDine explains in a Discourse post. This quote does not in any way support the claim that "Mozilla asked for it". Maybe find better sources for your info.

stubish 4y ago

'hit more distros' also means hitting old distro releases. We have a laptop here running a nearly EOL LTS version of Ubuntu, but thanks to the snap packaging is still running the latest release of Firefox (the most important piece of software on this machine).