[arch-general] Sequoia/Octopus and Thunderbird - alternative OpenPGP support package

[Mike Cloaked]

On Sun, Apr 18, 2021 at 1:56 PM Genes Lists via arch-general <
arch-general at lists.archlinux.org> wrote:

> I've been using octopus now for a while testing it - and its working
> really well. I much prefer using gpg and the implementation is in rust,
> and seems clean.
>
> The manual installation of octopus library is dead trivial - easy to try
> out for anyone interested. Simply rename librnp.so and put a soft link
> to the octopus version.
>
> I don't think changing the thunderbird base install is the right approach.
>
> While I'm not sure the best way to achieve this but here's one
> suggestion. Package thunderbird in 2 parts :
>
>      (1) thunderbird
>      (2) thunderbird-librnp.
>
> Now an separate package of sequoia octopus librnp
> (sequoia-octopus-librnp) can be provided as an alternative package
> supplying librnp.  Thunderbird would now depend on one of these packages
> 'providing' librnp.
>
> That way the regular install would remain the same, and for those of us
> that really like the alternative, its just a separate package to
> install. This might also be a good candidate for pacman alternatives
> when available.
>

I have been using the sequoia-octopus-librnp package as a replacement for
the internal librnp in Thunderbird beta 88.0b3 and it works well.  Of
course at the present time it is necessary to build your own copy of
sequoia-octopus-librnp as a package to install, and the replace the
existing librnp.so in the standard Thunderbird package with the octopus
version, either replacing the file, or softlinking it.  The development is
very active and up to date, and it provides excellent additional capability
for Thunderbird concerning signing and encryption for the gnupg keyring.
However if as the previous post suggests that the new library is provided
as an additional arch package as an optional dependency for Thunderbird,
that would be really excellent as a way forward.
-- 
mike c