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Reminder: Firefox 3.6.23 -> 7.0.1 advertised update scheduled for this Thursday

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Christian Legnitto

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Oct 3, 2011, 7:38:43 PM10/3/11
to dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org planning
Just a friendly reminder that we are planning to offer the Firefox 3.6.23 -> 7.0.1 advertised update[1] this Thursday, 2011-10-6[2].


What does the advertised update mean?


* We will be offering an advertised update (also sometimes called a "major update") for Firefox 3.6.x -> Firefox 7.0 on 2011-10-06 (1 week and 2 days after Firefox 7's release)

* The advertised update has no bearing on support levels. It does not mean Firefox 3.6 is end-of-life

* The advertised update has no bearing on the Firefox ESR proposal[3]

* This is part of the old release process and is unchanged from what we have been doing for the past 3+ years

* The prompt is opt-in...if users decline, they stay on 3.6.x and get security updates until the next time we decide to prompt

* We did this for 3.0.x -> 3.5, 3.5.x -> 3.6, 3.6.x -> 4.0 and 3.6.x -> 5.0...nothing new

* If enterprise deployments have advertised/"major" updates disabled in rollouts their users will not see the prompt but they will see Firefox 3.6.24 when it is released on 2011-11-08[2]


This is mainly to move regular Firefox users who don't know there is an update up to a newer/better version if they are so inclined.

Based on previous advertised update offers we expect to see a significant percentage of users installing the new version. We are, of course, watching the data closely to see what happens and to make sure there are no unexpected issues.

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thanks,
Christian

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.6_MU
[2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases#Other_releases
[3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:Proposal

Rick Alther

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Oct 5, 2011, 4:42:51 PM10/5/11
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On 10/3/2011 19:38, Christian Legnitto wrote:
> * If enterprise deployments have advertised/"major" updates disabled in rollouts their users will not see the prompt but they will see Firefox 3.6.24 when it is released on 2011-11-08[2]
How does one disable advertised updates? I know about the
app.update.never.X.Y pref, but to my knowledge that does not prevent
advertised updates. Is there another pref I'm not aware of?

Thanks,
- Rick Alther

Robert Strong

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Oct 5, 2011, 4:59:58 PM10/5/11
to dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
The pref app.update.never.X.Y just prevents prompting the user and it
doesn't prevent manual updates. If you don't want users to be able to
update to the updates advertised by Mozilla you need to disable updates
by locking the app.update.enabled with a value of false and to control
which updates are deployed you have to deploy updates yourself. For the
ESR under proposal the current thought is to provide a new update
channel that would only get the ESR releases but that is still under
discussion.

Robert
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> dev-planning mailing list
> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-planning

Robert Kaiser

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Oct 6, 2011, 12:57:15 PM10/6/11
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Rick Alther schrieb:
> On 10/5/2011 16:59, Robert Strong wrote:
>> The pref app.update.never.X.Y just prevents prompting the user and it
>> doesn't prevent manual updates. If you don't want users to be able to
>> update to the updates advertised by Mozilla you need to disable updates
>> by locking the app.update.enabled with a value of false and to control
>> which updates are deployed you have to deploy updates yourself. For the
>> ESR under proposal the current thought is to provide a new update
>> channel that would only get the ESR releases but that is still under
>> discussion.
>>
>> Robert
> Thanks Robert. Not what I was hoping for. We allow our users to do
> manual updates (and accept security point updates). The
> app.update.never.X.Y works great as they don't see 3.6 -> X updates,
> only the 3.6 updates. However, advertised updates ignore this pref.
>
> What I was hoping for was a way to major version updates, including
> advertised updates, yet allow security updates to the existing level to
> proceed unimpeded. It appears I can't have both.

I think you are misunderstanding our phrasing here. "Advertised update"
means that we prompt the user for update to a new "major" version, which
is exactly what you say that app.update.never.* successfully prevents,
from how I read your message.

What kind of update do you mean that ignores it?

Robert Kaiser

--
Note that any statements of mine - no matter how passionate - are never
meant to be offensive but very often as food for thought or possible
arguments that we as a community should think about. And most of the
time, I even appreciate irony and fun! :)

Rick Alther

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Oct 7, 2011, 12:21:01 PM10/7/11
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On 10/6/2011 12:57, Robert Kaiser wrote:
> I think you are misunderstanding our phrasing here. "Advertised update"
> means that we prompt the user for update to a new "major" version, which
> is exactly what you say that app.update.never.* successfully prevents,
> from how I read your message.
>
> What kind of update do you mean that ignores it?
>
> Robert Kaiser
>
My understanding was that advertised updates were designed to ensure the
user sees a recommended update, designed to bypass the
app.update.never.* prefs. However, I'm looking at the relevant code now
and that appears not to be the case.

The problem is that I need an app.update.never.* for every specific
version. e.g. if I have an app.update.never.7.0, then it won't block
7.0.1, since the code checks for specific versions. I need something
that will block all 7.0.x, for example. That's a problem as I
preconfigure this for our users so they don't see updates until we want
them to (of course, they can still check manually). The way these dot
releases appear unexpectedly, I can't predict what will be released and
thus can't preconfigure for every potential release.

- Rick Alther





Robert Strong

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Oct 7, 2011, 2:53:29 PM10/7/11
to dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
Robert Kaiser is correct regarding advertised update and as a matter of
fact the never prefs only works with advertised updates in Firefox 3.6.

The problem with using that pref is that it was never designed with that
use case in mind so there are several cases where using that pref will
not have the result you want and as you have found, maintaining it for
what you are trying to accomplish requires significant work. Also, those
prefs are cleared when the user manually checks for updates. It is just
not a good solution to what you are trying to accomplish. To be able to
control what updates the users see you would be better off either
deploying your own updates or possibly setting the app.update.url
preference (this must be added as a default preference and not as a user
preference) to your own server where you would provide your own update
xml file with the update you want to provide your users. If you do the
latter be sure to perform lots of testing.

Robert

lbc...@aliceadsl.fr

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Oct 11, 2011, 3:59:15 AM10/11/11
to dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org planning
Hello,

With Firefox 3.6 on XP, I declined 4.0 update a few months ago.

Now :
- I do not receive advertised update since last Thursday
- Manual update check return : "no update found"

I plan to install 7.0 over the 3.6 to solve the problem, but I can do some checks befor if you want.

beltzner

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Oct 11, 2011, 10:42:56 AM10/11/11
to mozilla.de...@googlegroups.com, dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org planning
Hi!

Thanks for letting us know, but your problem report is better suited to
mozilla.dev.apps.firefox than this planning newsgroup. You are more likely
to get a response to your offer of help in that forum.

Thanks again,
mike

lbc...@aliceadsl.fr

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Oct 11, 2011, 11:47:21 AM10/11/11
to dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org planning
ok, I put a copy on this group.

Thanks.

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