[Aptitude-devel] Bug#462063: aptitude: please add a "See homepage" action for packages

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + wontfix


Hello Guenter,

2008-01-22 09:25 G. Milde:
>Package: aptitude
>Version: 0.4.10-1+b1
>Severity: wishlist
>
>
>Dear Daniel,
>
>with the new field for a packages homepage, it would be nice to have a menu
>entry and hotkey to open a "sensible-browser" with the Homepage URL of the
>current package (with no action, if there is no Homepage specified).

I am marking this bug as +wontfix, mainly because it's been for 7+ years
without being implemented, so I don't see it happening any time soon.


Also, because implementing this kind of features with a package that
often runs as root and sometimes remotely is tricky because:

- can become a security liability (and aptitude has a wide enough attack
  surcface already), for example:

  - one would have to make sure that the field is not malicious and
  cannot be abused before passing it to another tool, etc

  - running the browser as root is even more problematic

- root doesn't necessarily have permission to run graphical applications
  if it was launched as another user, specially if run remotely

- even if it works when running it remotely, simply triggering the
  action (which can maybe be done by mistake) can have undesired effects
  like launch the browser in a way in which uses the remote X protocol
  and take lots of time on slow connections, and maybe it is not easy to
  cancel (specially if the intense flow data blocks the connection)


So I don't really think that it's a good idea to implement this, because
it's like opening a can of worms; and even if it was it means a
considerable amount of work, and I think that at the moment the scarce
time would be better spent in other more pressing problems.


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>