XULRunner future and ownership

[Benjamin Smedberg]

The Mozilla project no longer sees XULRunner as a priority project. It's
not core to advancing the open web or any of our current or planned
products.

As Ben Hearsum noted a couple weeks ago, we are turning off automated
XULRunner builds and so XULRunner will probably quickly cease to work.
In order to keep XULRunner in the tree, we need an owner who wants to
keep it building and running properly. Currently, I am the nominal owner
of the XULRunner code, but I have no desire to do this work or even
really to review the necessary patches. I am looking to see whether
there is an alternate owner who is interested in the task of keeping
XULRunner building and running properly and reviewing patches to
XULRuner-specific code. Please contact me if you want to nominate
yourself or somebody else for this role.

If I do not find a suitable owner in the next two weeks, I intend to
remove the XULRunner code from the mozilla-central repository on 14-August.

--BDS

[Mike de Boer]

I’d like to volunteer.

Not much more to say, really :-)

Cheers,

Mike.

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> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
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[Benjamin Kerensa]

XULRunner is dead, Long live XULRunner!

On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Benjamin Smedberg <benj...@smedbergs.us>

wrote:

> The Mozilla project no longer sees XULRunner as a priority project. It's
> not core to advancing the open web or any of our current or planned
> products.
>
> As Ben Hearsum noted a couple weeks ago, we are turning off automated
> XULRunner builds and so XULRunner will probably quickly cease to work. In
> order to keep XULRunner in the tree, we need an owner who wants to keep it
> building and running properly. Currently, I am the nominal owner of the
> XULRunner code, but I have no desire to do this work or even really to
> review the necessary patches. I am looking to see whether there is an
> alternate owner who is interested in the task of keeping XULRunner building
> and running properly and reviewing patches to XULRuner-specific code.
> Please contact me if you want to nominate yourself or somebody else for
> this role.
>
> If I do not find a suitable owner in the next two weeks, I intend to
> remove the XULRunner code from the mozilla-central repository on 14-August.
>
> --BDS
>
> _______________________________________________

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



--
Benjamin Kerensa

[Eric Shepherd]

Benjamin Smedberg wrote:
> I am looking to see whether there is an alternate owner who is
> interested in the task of keeping XULRunner building and running
> properly and reviewing patches to XULRuner-specific code. Please
> contact me if you want to nominate yourself or somebody else for this
> role.

I should note also that the MDN staff can't put any time into helping
with XULRunner specific documentation anymore, so any documentation work
would have to be taken up by the person or people that pick up the project.

I would, however, be quite happy to spend some time helping whoever
takes on that work -- or whoever picks up writing work for it -- on
exactly how to contribute the needed material to MDN.

--

Eric Shepherd
Senior Technical Writer
Mozilla <https://www.mozilla.org/>
Blog: http://www.bitstampede.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sheppy
Check my Availability <https://freebusy.io/eshe...@mozilla.com>

[Mike de Boer]

I’d like to finetune my earlier statement - after talking things over a bit with Benjamin - to say: I’d like to volunteer if there’s no one else moving forward to take this project on.

The reason is that I’m not currently working on or using XULRunner tech, so my level of engagement is low. I’m only really interested in a gecko bootstrap binary (called ‘xulrunner-stub’ at the moment) to continue to exist for my future projects.

If there’s someone who’s using XULRunner frequently for their projects, I’m sure she or he will be a much better fit! Please step forward. :-)

Cheers,

Mike.

> On 29 Jul 2015, at 23:46, Mike de Boer <mde...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
> I’d like to volunteer.
>
> Not much more to say, really :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike.
>

>> On 29 Jul 2015, at 20:30, Benjamin Smedberg <benj...@smedbergs.us> wrote:
>>
>> The Mozilla project no longer sees XULRunner as a priority project. It's not core to advancing the open web or any of our current or planned products.
>>
>> As Ben Hearsum noted a couple weeks ago, we are turning off automated XULRunner builds and so XULRunner will probably quickly cease to work. In order to keep XULRunner in the tree, we need an owner who wants to keep it building and running properly. Currently, I am the nominal owner of the XULRunner code, but I have no desire to do this work or even really to review the necessary patches. I am looking to see whether there is an alternate owner who is interested in the task of keeping XULRunner building and running properly and reviewing patches to XULRuner-specific code. Please contact me if you want to nominate yourself or somebody else for this role.
>>
>> If I do not find a suitable owner in the next two weeks, I intend to remove the XULRunner code from the mozilla-central repository on 14-August.
>>
>> --BDS
>>
>> _______________________________________________

[Philip Chee]

On 30/07/2015 22:49, Mike de Boer wrote:
> I’d like to finetune my earlier statement - after talking things over
> a bit with Benjamin - to say: I’d like to volunteer if there’s no one
> else moving forward to take this project on.
>
> The reason is that I’m not currently working on or using XULRunner
> tech, so my level of engagement is low. I’m only really interested in
> a gecko bootstrap binary (called ‘xulrunner-stub’ at the moment) to
> continue to exist for my future projects.
>
> If there’s someone who’s using XULRunner frequently for their
> projects, I’m sure she or he will be a much better fit! Please step
> forward. :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike.

I think mkaply and weird al are or were users of XULRunner. I'd
volunteer except that I have no clue how XULRunner works.

Phil

--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.

[Philip Chee]

Which bits of the tree is XULRunner?

[mka...@gmail.com]

I was doing XUL Runner work, but I have no more active clients using it.

From my perspective, the main things that are still needed for a "XUL Runner" is the stub, the ability to repackage nicely on Mac and some better tools for modifying the stub (icon, internal strings). The full xulrunner standalone package isn't really needed.

Firefox works fine from an application perspective; I've even taken the old xulrunner stub, removed the Firefox executable and been able to use a standard Firefox install as XUL Runner.

So as long as that continues to work, there's no need to the full xulrunner. (And I think it will because that's how the web app runtime works.)

As far as documentation goes, honestly the XULRunner documentation hasn't been in a good position for many years. Anyone who does this stuff does it by trial and error anyway.

That being said, I'll help out with XUL Runner, but I don't have the bandwidth to own it.

[Myk Melez]

> mka...@gmail.com <mailto:mka...@gmail.com>
> 2015 July 31 at 06:02

> Firefox works fine from an application perspective; I've even taken
> the old xulrunner stub, removed the Firefox executable and been able
> to use a standard Firefox install as XUL Runner.
>
> So as long as that continues to work, there's no need to the full
> xulrunner. (And I think it will because that's how the web app runtime
> works.)

I wouldn't assume this, given that the web runtime was deprioritized by
the organization three years ago.

SlimerJS <http://slimerjs.org/> also depends on being able to use a
Firefox installation in this way. And presumably there are others. So
it's worth clarifying whether Benjamin's proposal to remove the
XULRunner code from the repository would affect these use cases.

-myk

[mi...@kaply.com]

On Friday, July 31, 2015 at 7:14:22 PM UTC-5, Myk Melez wrote:
> > mka...@gmail.com <mailto:mka...@gmail.com>
> > 2015 July 31 at 06:02
> > Firefox works fine from an application perspective; I've even taken
> > the old xulrunner stub, removed the Firefox executable and been able
> > to use a standard Firefox install as XUL Runner.
> >
> > So as long as that continues to work, there's no need to the full
> > xulrunner. (And I think it will because that's how the web app runtime
> > works.)
> I wouldn't assume this, given that the web runtime was deprioritized by
> the organization three years ago.

So glad something like this was publicized.

> SlimerJS <http://slimerjs.org/> also depends on being able to use a
> Firefox installation in this way. And presumably there are others. So
> it's worth clarifying whether Benjamin's proposal to remove the
> XULRunner code from the repository would affect these use cases.

I don't think Mozilla cares about the platform anymore, so I doubt it.

It's all about the web.