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I use and enjoy Firefox on my Ubuntu 10.04.2 laptop (although Firefox needs work for the Linux/Ubuntu version).

Yet I realize that in comparison to other pieces of software that have an "Ubuntu/Debian" version (.deb file, and usually .rpm files as well). I don't see it in one of the most profound assets of the FLOSS world.

The Question is - Why?

If Google Chrome/ium can , why can't they? It will be easier to get up-to-date software and features and so forth.

Binarylife
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ushabtay
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    Related Question – Marco Ceppi Jul 01 '11 at 11:04
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    I don't think this site is appropriate for your question. But if it's a Firefox package you want, there's Firefox Stable PPA building for Ubuntu, run by Mozilla. – Oxwivi Jul 01 '11 at 10:33
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    The PPA is run by the Mozilla team within ubuntu, it's not run by Mozilla itself, though our team takes Mozilla's code and builds it on ubuntu as soon as it's released. – Jorge Castro Jul 01 '11 at 10:44
  • @Jorge, they don't anything to do with the actual Mozilla developers? – Oxwivi Jul 01 '11 at 10:48
  • They do coordinate with Mozilla to make the release as quick as possible so we can get the PPAs ready, etc. Eventually this will be real fast -- the goal is you not have to care about whether you have the latest Mozilla products, you would already have them by the time you read about it. – Jorge Castro Jul 01 '11 at 11:14
  • Thanks folks. Personally, I use the PPA and have Firefox 5.0 installed on my system. Yet, we're should focus on End-Users in this discussion. My mom knows what a .deb file is, but lacks the purpose of PPAs – ushabtay Jul 04 '11 at 07:32
  • Mozilla could have released .deb and .rpm, but why should it? The binaries are provided to you ready to download and run. Is it not good enough? – mikewhatever Aug 10 '11 at 13:45

3 Answers3

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I think this question can only be definitely answered by some one from Mozilla. My guess is that they dont do it because they dont need to. When Ubuntu's Mozilla team is already doing a fantastic job why would Mozilla want to waste their resources re-doing the same? They are better off focusing on making Firefox better than packaging it for different platforms.

binW
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Why are you limiting your list to .deb and .rpm? What about Gentoo ebuilds, Arch packages, Pardus PISI files, Slax' LZM files, PUP/PET of Puppy linux and whatnot?

The sheer number of linux distributions and package managers out there is the reason: Nobody of Mozilla can test all of that.

What if I invent my own Linux distribution with its own package format? Do you expect Mozilla to support that, too? Even if I'm the only user? What if there are 10 users of my distribution? Where do you draw the line between supported and unsupported distribution?

What about dependencies? Firefox 14 might work with ffmpeg 12, but Debian ships ffmpeg 11.92. Fedora 23 ships ffmpeg 12.2. Mozilla cannot resolve all this issues.

This are the reasons why packaging for distributions is the task of the distribution people, not the application programmer's.

cweiske
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I think Mozilla doesn't want that... They only built the cross-platform browser, and help users use it easily, make all add-ons compatible over the different systems...

By the way, if Mozilla focus on building deb, rpm,... they must work more harder... For example, they need to create deb file that work on Ubuntu 11.04 (with Global menu, that only work on Unity), they must create deb file to work with GNOME theme... So, if they only provide tar file, users only need to untar it and run, and then users can choose another profile if they want, or easily run Debug mode (for addon developers)...

But, if you want deb file, you can follow that instruction: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/how-to-build-a-deb-of-the-firefox-cvs-trunk-680801/. That is old, I know, but I think it maybe help you.

KimKha
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