On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 02:17:45AM +0000, Adam Fontenot via aur-general wrote:

Hi all,

The TU "alad" deleted my package, firefox-clean, from the AUR. I'm assuming this is a mistake, but I can't contact alad directly because their email is hidden on their profile. At first glance, it may appear that my version of the Firefox PKGBUILD in Extra does not do anything notable, but this is not the case. My package is intended to do three things:

It's not a mistake. Check the submission guidelines [1]; a package should only be submitted if it's not overly specialized and useful to more than 1 user. In this case, all but a few users will be able to achieve what this package offers by configuration of the regular firefox package in the repositories.

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository#Rules_of_submissio...

(About my email address; I usually hide it due to spam. However, it is still visible in my public profile on archlinux.org or any of the packages I maintain.)

1. Set sensible default options that most users will want in the first place.
2. Eliminate *at compile time* code that is not web-browser related

(e.g. Pocket). 3. Fix pain points for power users with small, maintainable patches. (e.g. inclusion of a restart button in the file menu)

At least items 2 and 3 cannot be done with adjustments to user.js, as the deletion request claims.

You can also disable Pocket through other means (the request also said "other user configuration"), such as the extensions.pocket.* series provied in about:config. If you had such concern about these "features" and wanted to disable them at compile time, there's existing packages which take this further e.g. firefox-esr-privacy. [2]

[2] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-esr-privacy/

A restart button is available through an addon. [3]

[3] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/restart-my-fox

I don't claim that many people will want to use it, but for those who might, having a package in the AUR to use could save a considerable amount of work. Inclusion in the AUR has never been dependent on the number of users the package benefits, and so far as I can see, firefox-clean doesn't break any rules.

I don't see how compiling something massive like firefox every 2 weeks weighs up against minor changes that can be achieved otherwise. Otherwise, see above.

Can I recreate the package, or can it be reinstated?

Thanks!

You can submit a package if it is not overly specialized and contains more than trivial changes. As outlined above, that's not something firefox-clean had to offer.

-Adam Fontenot

Best,

Alad