Re: Communicator removed from Testing?

2003-01-29 Thread Tom Pfeifer
Colin Watson wrote:

 Leaving it there with known security holes was worse ...
 
 If you want it back, there is really only one option: find a developer
 willing to maintain it properly. That's absolutely all it comes down to.

Mark L. Kahnt wrote:

 As Colin notes in his reply, and was noted in the advisory that DWN
 noted, it was subject to serious bugs that weren't seeing any sign, in
 Debian, of getting any better. The source code not being available and
 not as many using it anymore, it was not showing signs of being fixed to
 be raised to meet Debian standards for security. The decision wasn't
 something commercial - it was in keeping with the Debian policies
 iiuc. 


OK guys, thanks for the clarifications and explanations. After reading
more about this, it's clear that I jumped the gun a bit in being
critical of Debian on this issue.

Tom


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Re: Communicator removed from Testing?

2003-01-28 Thread Tom Pfeifer
Mark L. Kahnt wrote:
 
 On Mon, 2003-01-27 at 23:58, Curt Howland wrote:
  Personal reply if possible, I cannot keep up with the traffic on user...
 
  Does anyone know why Netscape Communicator has been dropped from
  Testing?
 
  Does Mozilla email load the Communicator mail files ok?
 
  Chocolate or Vanilla?
 
  Curt-
 
 
  --
  Wherever I go, everyone is a little bit safer because I am there.
   Wherever I am, anyone in need has a friend.
   Whenever I return home, everyone is happy I am there.
 ---The Warrior Creed, Robert L. Humphrey, USMC
 
 Debian Weekly News warned a while back that it would get the hook, as a)
 it is non-free, b) it is buggy and not getting noticeably better as
 Netscape is looking to retire it in favour of Netscape 7, and c) it
 wasn't even being kept up with the latest releases of that codebase from
 Netscape.

Yes, and with all of that said, some of us still prefer to use it for
various reasons. Mozilla is not a 100% replacement as of yet as it runs
too slowly on older systems, and in addition, the Mozilla mail/news just
isn't as good yet. 

I know there are other alternatives to look at, as well as other ways to
install Communicator. My point is simply that removing the Communicator
packages, as justified as it may seem to many, is still something of a
disservice to a portion of the Debian community.

Tom


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Re: Communicator removed from Testing?

2003-01-28 Thread Colin Watson
On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 07:09:04AM -0500, Tom Pfeifer wrote:
 Mark L. Kahnt wrote:
  Debian Weekly News warned a while back that it would get the hook, as a)
  it is non-free, b) it is buggy and not getting noticeably better as
  Netscape is looking to retire it in favour of Netscape 7, and c) it
  wasn't even being kept up with the latest releases of that codebase from
  Netscape.
 
 Yes, and with all of that said, some of us still prefer to use it for
 various reasons. Mozilla is not a 100% replacement as of yet as it runs
 too slowly on older systems, and in addition, the Mozilla mail/news just
 isn't as good yet. 
 
 I know there are other alternatives to look at, as well as other ways to
 install Communicator. My point is simply that removing the Communicator
 packages, as justified as it may seem to many, is still something of a
 disservice to a portion of the Debian community.

Leaving it there with known security holes was worse ...

If you want it back, there is really only one option: find a developer
willing to maintain it properly. That's absolutely all it comes down to.
It wasn't removed because it was politically incorrect, or because
somebody had told us that Mozilla was a 100% replacement, or anything
like that. It was removed because it had four open release-critical
bugs, three of which were security holes, and all of which had been open
for more than six months.

=
[Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 06:29:07 -0500] [ftpmaster: Anthony Towns]
Removed the following packages from unstable:

communicator |   1:4.77-2 | i386
 navigator |   1:4.77-2 | i386
  netscape |   1:4.77-2 | i386
netscape-base-4 |   1:4.77-2 | i386
netscape-base-4-libc5 |   1:4.77-2 | i386
netscape4.base |   1:4.77-2 | source

--- Reason ---
purged by RM; see bugs 145402
--
=
=
[Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 06:30:58 -0500] [ftpmaster: Anthony Towns]
Removed the following packages from unstable:

communicator-base-477 | 4.77-2 | i386
communicator-nethelp-477 | 4.77-2 | all
communicator-smotif-477 | 4.77-2 | i386
communicator-spellchk-477 | 4.77-2 | all
navigator-base-477 | 4.77-2 | i386
navigator-nethelp-477 | 4.77-2 | all
navigator-smotif-477 | 4.77-2 | i386
netscape-base-477 | 4.77-2 | i386
netscape-ja-resource-477 | 4.77-2 | all
netscape-java-477 | 4.77-2 | all
netscape-ko-resource-477 | 4.77-2 | all
netscape-smotif-477 | 4.77-2 | i386
netscape4.77 | 4.77-2 | source

--- Reason ---
purged by RM; see bugs 145398 145399 113615
--
=

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson  [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]


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Re: Communicator removed from Testing?

2003-01-28 Thread Mark L. Kahnt
On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 07:09, Tom Pfeifer wrote:
 Mark L. Kahnt wrote:
  
  On Mon, 2003-01-27 at 23:58, Curt Howland wrote:
   Personal reply if possible, I cannot keep up with the traffic on user...
  
   Does anyone know why Netscape Communicator has been dropped from
   Testing?
  
   Does Mozilla email load the Communicator mail files ok?
  
   Chocolate or Vanilla?
  
   Curt-
  
  
   --
   Wherever I go, everyone is a little bit safer because I am there.
Wherever I am, anyone in need has a friend.
Whenever I return home, everyone is happy I am there.
  ---The Warrior Creed, Robert L. Humphrey, USMC
  
  Debian Weekly News warned a while back that it would get the hook, as a)
  it is non-free, b) it is buggy and not getting noticeably better as
  Netscape is looking to retire it in favour of Netscape 7, and c) it
  wasn't even being kept up with the latest releases of that codebase from
  Netscape.
 
 Yes, and with all of that said, some of us still prefer to use it for
 various reasons. Mozilla is not a 100% replacement as of yet as it runs
 too slowly on older systems, and in addition, the Mozilla mail/news just
 isn't as good yet. 
 
 I know there are other alternatives to look at, as well as other ways to
 install Communicator. My point is simply that removing the Communicator
 packages, as justified as it may seem to many, is still something of a
 disservice to a portion of the Debian community.
 
 Tom

I make no observation of relative qualities or selective suitability in
one area relative to another - Communicator used to be my default
Internet interaction suite, both on Linux and previously on OS/2 and
even earlier, Windows NT. That said, I rarely could get the Debian
packages to work, and so what I did was I installed it from Netscape's
installer under /opt and created my own references to it there. Unlike
some other programs, at least Communicator does have a good installer.

As Colin notes in his reply, and was noted in the advisory that DWN
noted, it was subject to serious bugs that weren't seeing any sign, in
Debian, of getting any better. The source code not being available and
not as many using it anymore, it was not showing signs of being fixed to
be raised to meet Debian standards for security. The decision wasn't
something commercial - it was in keeping with the Debian policies
iiuc. The non-free aspect was not in and of itself the reason for the
hook - it just made fixing the other two considerations noticeably more
difficult.
-- 
Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP
ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting
Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]



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