Ubuntu
firefox package

when do we get FF86.0.1?

Asked by Karl

Firefox 86.0.1 released Mar 11 fixes mul,tiple annoying Linux issues (crash on start https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1694670 , focus switching https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1694927 ) introduced in 86.0, why do you still distribute the buggy version 10 days later? I keep postponing updates until I see the good version appearing, but I didn't expect it to take that long!

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#1

For hirsute work is currently been done on version 87.0, see https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox
I guess 86.0.1 will be skipped, and there will be 87.0 soon.

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Karl (karl875180) said : 		#2

I find this very confusing. When I enter the URL https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/87.0/releasenotes/ it gets rewritten to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/87.0beta/releasenotes/ which would indicate to me that 87.0 isn't even released yet by Mozilla.
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=linux64&lang=en-US downloads 86.0.1, confirming this.
Why does Ubuntu abandon a bugfix release in favour of a beta release? I could understand this maybe as an isolated decision for hirsute, which isn't released yet itself and the timing may be influenced by its release cycle, but I'm puzzled why one might do this for production releases, including the LTS release. 87.0 may introduce new bugs that will be fixed by a bugfix release, by skipping bugfix releases instead of .0 "bleeding edge" releases, I think Ubuntu is doing a disservice to its users.

I tried to understand the process better by following the link to email archive in "Original Maintainer (usually from Debian): Ubuntu Mozilla Team (E-Mail-Archiv)" but https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-mozillateam/ ends in October 2012.

I looked at https://code.launchpad.net/~mozillateam/firefox/firefox.hirsute and in "Recent Revisions" I find
 1467. By Olivier Tilloy on 2021-03-10
    releasing package firefox version 86.0.1+build1-0ubuntu1

so looking at that timeline, 86.0.1 was released 5 days before work was started on 87.0 on 2021-03-15.

This still doesn't explain why 86.0.1 didn't make it into the production versions of Ubuntu.

Feel free to point me to documentation explaining the package release cycle for Ubuntu in more detail. Unfortunately ubuntu.com as a starting point is just very flashy, but I find it hard to find detailed information from there.

Many thanks,
Karl

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#3

I guess you better directly ask someone from the Mozilla security team https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-security
See also https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-security/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

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Karl (karl875180) said : 		#4

Soon after sending the suggested mail, 86.0.1 appeared in the Software Updater.