1397508 - Rename the executable binary file for Developer Edition

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Untriaged, enhancement)

Description

[Audrey Toskin]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0
Build ID: 20170903140023



Actual results:

By default, the build for Developer Edition creates an executable binary file named `firefox`. This clashes with Firefox Stable, so that, for example, both DE and Stable use the same command name, are displayed in Linux desktops using the same icon, and so on.

I'm interested in creating an RPM package of Firefox DE for Fedora, so I *have* to rename the executable, since it would otherwise use the same command path at the already-packaged Firefox Stable (`/usr/bin/firefox`). But the static binaries available for download from the official website also uses the `firefox` name and therefore also still has issues with the wrong icon in Linux desktops.

Possible names for the binary file:

* firefox-developer-edition -- descriptive and unambiguous, but rather long.
* firefox-devedition -- a bit shorter, matches abbreviation used on archive.mozilla.org; maybe still a little long when typing in the command line, but I like it.
* firefox-dev -- nice and short while still understandable, I think, though Debian users might assume this refers to the packaged development header files.
* firefoxde -- nice and short, but not exactly self-explanatory.

Comment 1

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Bulk change of QA Contact to :jlund, per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1428483

Comment 2

[Audrey Toskin]

Any movement on this? I know it's annoyingly common for people outside the project to assume every change they request is easy to do... But I mean, I would assume this one is as simple as updating the build scripts to use the name `firefox-devedition`, or whatever binary name you choose, instead of plain `firefox`. Is there more to it than that? Thanks.

Comment 3

[Justin Wood (:Callek)]

I suspect this is a product decision to do, so as far as a Releng Bug I'm naming this 'wontfix' due to no buy-in from Product. However if Product teams decide it is something they want, I can certainly help Sheppard this bug to a solution.

For your use I wonder if n rpm `Conflicts:` marker is appropriate for you on Fedora, depends I guess on how you view it.

Comment 4

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

I will just wontfix because I think this should be done at the distro level and not in our product.
Renaming Firefox will cause too many issues in the CI, with antivirus, etc.