1290670 - (thunderbird-flatpak) [meta] Use Flatpak framework to distribute Thunderbird for Linux users

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Mario Sanchez Prada]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:47.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/47.0
Build ID: 20160711192800

Steps to reproduce:

In a similar fashion to what has been proposed in bug 127871 for Firefox, it would be wonderful if Mozilla could distribute Thunderbird as a flatpak[1], so that it can be distributed as an standalone bundle, independent from any distro. 

In order to help with this task, I've flatpak'ed Thunderbird 45.2.0 myself and published all the resources used in https://github.com/mariospr/thunderbird-flatpak, released with a CC0 1.0 (Public Domain Dedication) license, which you're more than welcome to use if you want as a baseline of course.

Last, as a stretch goal, it would be wonderful if Thunderbird could constrain its sandbox as much as possible and improve its integration with the rest of the system, for what it will likely need some extra development effort in order to use some of the "portals" flatpak offer, such as the Documents and the OpenURI portal, for instance. But that could certainly be better suited to be tracked as a different bug, of course. Just mentioning here for rerefence

[1] http://flatpak.org/
[2] https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/wiki/Portals


Actual results:

On Linux, Thunderbird is only distributed as tarballs or distro-dependent packages such as RPM or DEB..


Expected results:

It is possible to install Thunderbird on any Linux distribution using flatpak

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I think you mean bug 1278719

Comment 2

[Mario Sanchez Prada]

Oh! yes, I did mean bug 1278719, sorry for the confusing typo

Comment 3

[adrianlucrececeleste]

I've been trying to flatpak(1) Thunderbird (52.4.0) myself, but it'd be much preferred if mozilla did it officially themselves. I've made quite a bit of progress but I'm still working out a variety of kinks (e.g. enigmail integration, lightning isn't working, etc). If you want to see the progress I've made you can look at this PR: https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/161

Comment 4

[Óvári]

(In reply to adrianlucrececeleste from comment #3)
Thank you for landing Thunderbird in Flathub[1] and creating a Repository[2].

If Flathub[3] is unable to host Thunderbird Beta[4][5], could Thunderbird Beta Flatpak be hosted on the official Thunderbird webpage[6].

If Flathub[3] is unable to host Thunderbird Nightly[7][8], could Thunderbird Nightly Flatpak be hosted on the official Thunderbird webpage[7].

Unfortunately, there are still some issues[9] with Thunderbird flatpak. Could Thunderbird core developers assist please?

@jorgk Could official Thunderbird builds trigger[10] updates to the flatpak version too please? Is this something Thunderbird Release engineering needs to be aware of to enable continuous integration?

Thank you

[1] https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird
[2] https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird
[3] https://flathub.org/
[4] https://www.thunderbird.net/channel/
[5] https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/issues/23
[6] https://www.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/beta/all/
[7] http://ftp.stage.mozaws.net/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/
[8] https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/issues/24
[9] https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/issues/
[10] https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=comm-central

Comment 5

[adrianlucrececeleste]

At the moment Flathub doesn't do developmental snapshots. I would have no issue with Thunderbird Beta/Nightly flatpak(s) being hosted on Thunderbird's website though.

Comment 6

[adrianlucrececeleste]

(In reply to Óvári from comment #4, and myself from comment #5)

If you would need help in how to get Beta/Nightly flatpaks setup, I could try to help. I feel like there wouldn't be much work involved.

Comment 7

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

(In reply to Óvári from comment #4)
> @jorgk Could official Thunderbird builds trigger[10] updates to the flatpak
> version too please? Is this something Thunderbird Release engineering needs
> to be aware of to enable continuous integration?
Yes.

Comment 8

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

For the Thunderbird team this has a hard dependency on Firefox completing their flatpak work. When there is a builder that generates the flatpaks for Firefox, we can have our release engineering set up jobs that work just the same. I don't think it makes sense to invest time in doing this beforehand, as it could possibly mean a substantial amount of work that the Firefox team would be doing anyway. I'd much rather re-use their work at this point.

Comment 10

[u647204]

Flathub maintainers have released a Flatpak for Thunderbird:

• Flathub listing: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird
• GitHub repo: https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird

It's been working well for me.

Comment 11

[Emerson Bernier]

(In reply to Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩] from comment #8)

For the Thunderbird team this has a hard dependency on Firefox completing
their flatpak work. When there is a builder that generates the flatpaks for
Firefox, we can have our release engineering set up jobs that work just the
same. I don't think it makes sense to invest time in doing this beforehand,
as it could possibly mean a substantial amount of work that the Firefox team
would be doing anyway. I'd much rather re-use their work at this point.

Today Mozilla released first official stable version of Firefox to Flathub. The ball is on Thunderbird team side then. It think it would be reasonable to target next major TB release as first official release to Flathub. Meanwhile you may publish TB betas to flathub-beta repository same as FF did.

You may look and borrow useful stuff (like necessary flatpak permissions) from current unofficial TB app on flathub: https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird

Comment 12

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

Looks like Rob is aware of this, so I am clearing my needinfo. Would be great to support/build flatpaks directly.

Comment 13

[Hanno Zulla]

Hello there. According to https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/issues/250 the current flatpak of Thunderbird is being maintained by single outside volunteer. As flatpak gains importance with the Linux ecosystem, it would be preferable if the Thunderbird team could provide official flatpak releases (or at least hire that single volunteer to do so, since he seems to be doing a pretty good job). Thanks.

Comment 14

[Ryan Lee Sipes]

I do think we should take this over. Andrei, can you land this plane and get it assigned to someone?

Comment 15

[Andrei Hajdukewycz [:sancus]]

(In reply to Ryan Lee Sipes from comment #14)

I do think we should take this over. Andrei, can you land this plane and get it assigned to someone?

Sure, Daniel can look into this. It will probably take some time though.

Comment 16

[Daniel Darnell [:dandarnell]]

Attachment: WIP: Bug 1290670 - Implement Flatpak repackage. r=#thunderbird-build-system-reviewers

Comment 17

[Daniel Darnell [:dandarnell]]

Attachment: Bug 1290670 - Implement Flatpak push. r=#thunderbird-build-system-reviewers

Comment 18

[Emerson Bernier]

During review of initial flatpak manifest[1] @rjl promised some reviews will be addressed in a follow-up but it never happened and we are on the brink of publishing first official Thunderbird release to Flathub. Can we make the follow-up addressing the reviews then?

[1] https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D172732

Comment 19

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

(In reply to Emerson Bernier from comment #18)

During review of initial flatpak manifest[1] @rjl promised some reviews will be addressed in a follow-up but it never happened and we are on the brink of publishing first official Thunderbird release to Flathub. Can we make the follow-up addressing the reviews then?

[1] https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D172732

Daniel - please create bugs for those items and address them.

Comment 20

[amanraoverma]

The manifest link on https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.Thunderbird currently points to an archived GitHub repo.

Comment 21

[Emerson Bernier]

(In reply to amanraoverma from comment #20)

The manifest link on https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.Thunderbird currently points to an archived GitHub repo.

This was tracked in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1845495 . The fix wasn't picked to 115 branch yet.

Comment 22

[rugk]

BTW you should have a look at the reports/star ratings for the Thunderbird flatpak (e.g. visible in GNOME Software). People report, their mail accounts are lost! Also a downgrade to 115.3 is being reported after an update to 128.x. Obvious, as another user reports, this causes Thunderbird to prevent starting as the profile is newer than the Thunderbird then.

I saw no linked ticket yet and I am not affected as I don't use it, so please open one or do sth. about it. Many users seem to report it.

https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.Thunderbird

Comment 23

[Corey Bryant]

(In reply to rugk from comment #22)

BTW you should have a look at the reports/star ratings for the Thunderbird flatpak (e.g. visible in GNOME Software). People report, their mail accounts are lost! Also a downgrade to 115.3 is being reported after an update to 128.x. Obvious, as another user reports, this causes Thunderbird to prevent starting as the profile is newer than the Thunderbird then.

I saw no linked ticket yet and I am not affected as I don't use it, so please open one or do sth. about it. Many users seem to report it.

https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.Thunderbird

Thanks for mentioning that. We are currently building 115.14.0esr and it includes a fix for the downgrade issue.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1908299

Comment 24

[Hanno Zulla]

While unsubscribing from this bug's notifications, I want to thank every developer involved in offering the flatpak version of Thunderbird. Keep up the good work.

Comment 25

[Eugene Savitsky]

Any plans for TB beta as a flatpak?

Comment 26

[David Lawrence [:dkl]]

(In reply to Eugene Savitsky from comment #25)

Any plans for TB beta as a flatpak?

$ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
$ flatpak install flathub-beta org.mozilla.Thunderbird

Comment 27

[Eugene Savitsky]

Is there a way to find it via flathub.org?
https://flathub.org/apps/search?q=thunderbird%20beta - gives nothing...

I couldn't find anything by searching internet either:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=thunderbird+beta+flatpak