Provide policy to allow only minor updates, but not major updates to the next ESR version
Categories
(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement, P3)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: Thunderbird_Mail_DE, Unassigned)
References
(Blocks 1 open bug)
Details
AFAIK at the moment Thunderbird and Firefox have only a general allow / disallow policy for app updates. Due to this general policy users have to manually install app updates in the ESR version line, when they have disallowed app updates per this general policy.
We need (at least for Thunderbird) an additional policy to allow app updates (only) in the ESR version line, to prevent app updates to the next major version per the (yet existing) general policy.
The goal is to install automatic updates in ESR line (only):
78.10.0 → 78.11.0 would be allowed and automatically installed
78.11.0 → 91.0 wouldn't be automatically installed
Due to the still major addon API changes from Thunderbird 78 to 91 it would be a good idea to implement this policy in 78 ESR before releasing 91. From supporters point of view there could be multiple reasons for this option / enterprise policy
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Updated•3 years ago
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Comment 1•3 years ago
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We already have this request: bug 1531786
Would that be not better? The policy rule will be contradicting our aim to update users as fast as possible to new major releases, as the old ESR becomes unsupported very fast. The update notification screen would popup ever so often, while the policy will just let the user get stuck.
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Comment 2•3 years ago
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(In reply to John Bieling (:TbSync) from comment #1)
We already have this request:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1531786
Would that be not better?
IMHO it would not be better (in every case).
Your aim is to force users to have the latest major version, which is considered as "stable" by Thunderbird developers. This approach has been used from 68 to 78. The Enigmail to integrated OpenPGP example should be a "good" negative example for the user experience with the developers decision, when a new version line should be "stable" and auto updates got enabled.
The situation to have only the yet existing simple "on"/"off" policy forces users to install all updates manually (when they use the yet only existing policy to disable updates completely), or to accept ALL automatically installed updates.
- The first choice (disable all) leads to not installed minor security updates for many people, because of "not going the manually update path" out of laziness or just not being informed about minor updates.
- The second choice (enable all automatically updates) leads to frustration, when the major update is maybe surprisingly installed. The solution in Bug 1531786 should be additional to this RFE here, because Adddon incompatibility is not the only reason for staying in a old ESR line.
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Comment 3•3 years ago
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Wearing my enterprise hat, I support this RFE.
There's a lot of reasons why enterprise may not want to auto-update immediately to the next major ESR version. That's why we have a "no-updates" policy in the first place. However, typically minor updates will be wanted immediately for security and will not cause problems, because they cannot disrupt enterprise workflows with new UX, data conversions, broken addons, new bugs etc.
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Comment 4•3 years ago
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Lets move this to m-c, as we probably cannot do that on our own. D'accord?
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Comment 5•3 years ago
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The technical keyword here is "version pinning". There is already a request for this.
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Comment 6•3 years ago
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(In reply to John Bieling (:TbSync) from comment #4)
Lets move this to m-c, as we probably cannot do that on our own. D'accord?
Sure, thanks John! Good find.
Description
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