[Pkg-mozext-maintainers] Thunderbird 78 on the way to next ESR

[Carsten Schoenert]

Hi,

MZLNA did released the first beta version (78.0 b1) of the upcoming next
ESR version for Thunderbird.

I was able to puzzle things out and uploaded yesterday late the day a
first working version to experimental. The first bunch of buildds did
their job and build packages.

https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=thunderbird&suite=experimental

A little bit funny but also disappointing the situation for 32bit
platforms is getting more worse, now even i386 is building fine (as
mostly) but fails later while linking stuff because getting out of
memory while doing. These similar memory issues was the main reason I've
kicked out arm{mel,hf} and mips in the past as I could not find a
solution for this problem. But i386 is still a very important platform.
So any help here to get the next ESR version of Thunderbird build-able
on i386 is appreciated. I will have a look at the things Mike is doing
for FF, he will see the same issue.

The usability of this version for productive usage is given I'd say, so
far I use the various options. I haven't found a blocking issue that
makes the last beta version critical to use.
Remember, OpenPGP encryption is now directly included, no need to
install Enigmail here any more (it's also not possible any more). The
usability for OpenPGP key management still needs some improvement for sure.

PS: If you encounter some "problem" regarding OpenPGP and encrypted
email exchanges there you can't answer because Thunderbird want only
accepted SMIME encryption than please have a look a the default settings
for this specific account. Ensure you have setup a default OpenPGP Key
to use within the settings! Otherwise TB wont ever try to use OpenPGP
for encryption.

Localization
The translation of the current beta versions hasn't reached a 100% state
yet for the main used languages, should getting better within the next
beta versions.

Add-On Support and Usability
Well, the situation here is bad. I guess it's now the third time in a
row Mozilla/MZLNA did change the API for Add-Ons, now only webextension
 is usable and no support for any legacy versions.
I haven't found a lot of Add-Ons that are usable with the current
Thunderbird beta versions and none packaged version of these. Means we
will see a lot of breakage here.
I appreciate if we could start to collect a wiki site to coordinate the
needed work. I guess it's helpful to start any work based on the popcorn
count. For this we need to have a look at two different package overview
sites.

We still have different Maintainer contacts for the various packages.

The old one from @lists.alioth.debian.org times
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-mozext-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org

The now "correct" address on @alioth-lists.debian.net
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-mozext-maintainers%40alioth-lists.debian.net

As I can't speak for any packaged Add-On I'd like to hear any other
opinions and thinking's, I will need to add at least some Breaks for
known non working packages.

So please test out the current TB versions from experimental!
As always, please make a backup of your existing profile before starting
a beta version, there is no way back after the profile upgrade!

-- 
Regards
Carsten Schoenert