Bug#1101132: epiphany-browser: support webrtc with libwebrtc as boringssl now has a GPL compatible license (Apache2)

[Pirate Praveen]

Package: epiphany-browser
Version: 48.0-1
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: praveen at debian.org

Dear Maintainer,

In my understanding,the main reason for not building webrtc support is GPL
incompatible license of BoringSSL [1]

There are also other technical reasons, but missing audio / video call support
is a major drawback and gstreamer powered webrtc support in webkitgtk can still
take a long time to come by.

Last month BoringSSL license was switched to Apache 2.0 [2], making one of the
primary reason for not enabling this support go away.

Please consider enabling webrtc support via libwebrtc since boringSSL is now
GPL compatible. If not for trixie, at least we can have in trixie-backports.

Especially with the recent changes in Mozilla ToS (they backtracked a bit after
backlash - but they have not restored the documentation where they promised to
never sell personal data), dependency on Google for funding and many other bad
defaults make people look for an alternative. The only non Google alternative
usable today is GNOME Web, but missing WebRTC support is a big drawback for
audio / video calls.


[1] https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/webrtc-support-in-webkitgtk-and-
wpewebkit-with-gstreamer-status-update/276562055#6
[2]
https://github.com/google/boringssl/commit/33d1049b1f730d2725bb09b2256fd5fe4c46b17e


-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.12.17-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages epiphany-browser depends on:
ii  dbus-user-session [default-dbus-session-bu  1.16.2-2
    s]
ii  epiphany-browser-data                       48~rc-2
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas                   48~beta-1
ii  iso-codes                                   4.17.0-1
ii  libadwaita-1-0                              1.7~rc-1
ii  libarchive13t64                             3.7.4-1.1
ii  libc6                                       2.41-4
ii  libcairo2                                   1.18.2-2
ii  libgck-2-2                                  4.3.91-1
ii  libgcr-4-4                                  4.3.91-1
ii  libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0                         2.42.12+dfsg-2
ii  libglib2.0-0t64                             2.84.0-1
ii  libgmp10                                    2:6.3.0+dfsg-3
ii  libgranite-7-7                              7.6.0-1
ii  libgstreamer1.0-0                           1.25.90-2
ii  libgtk-4-1                                  4.17.5+ds-3
ii  libhogweed6t64                              3.10.1-1
ii  libjavascriptcoregtk-6.0-1                  2.46.6-1
ii  libjson-glib-1.0-0                          1.10.6+ds-1
ii  libnettle8t64                               3.10.1-1
ii  libpango-1.0-0                              1.56.1-1
ii  libportal-gtk4-1                            0.9.1-1
ii  libportal1                                  0.9.1-1
ii  libsecret-1-0                               0.21.6-3
ii  libsoup-3.0-0                               3.6.4-2
ii  libsqlite3-0                                3.46.1-2
ii  libwebkitgtk-6.0-4                          2.46.6-1
ii  libxml2                                     2.12.7+dfsg+really2.9.14-0.2+b2

Versions of packages epiphany-browser recommends:
ii  ca-certificates           20241223
ii  gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad  1.25.90-3
ii  yelp                      42.2-2

epiphany-browser suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information