SeaMonkey Project officially requests support

The original article appeared in the magazine "mozillaZine"; its translation is published below. The distribution of the article is welcome.

About the SeaMonkey Union Position

We welcome everyone who uses the SeaMonkey software suite and supports it.

Most importantly, the SeaMonkey project is alive, and we are not planning to stop its development and support. But, if we want to continue to release the best and only "combine" on the platform of Mozilla Gecko , we will need your help.

To begin with - about the current state of affairs

SeaMonkey version 2.46 was released in late December after months of struggling with infrastructure and build issues. Although we still use the Mozilla project infrastructure, we can assume that we are in free swimming. Soon we are planning to release the final version 2.48, based on the Firefox 51 code. Yes, we are doing it late due to infrastructure and build problems, but not even as late as it was with version 2.46. The need to rely on Firefox 51 code means that security fixes will be again outdated compared to the current state of the Firefox project. Believe me, we are also not happy about this.

The SeaMonkey project is developed only by the efforts of enthusiasts working on it in their free time. Those who make up the core of the team (count to 7) are committed to their work, but, given the huge number of changes in the code, they are gradually becoming overloaded.

The above means that the problems are not fixed as quickly as we would like. From the fact that Mozilla is increasingly letting out an aging infrastructure (because the build process of Firefox is moving to the cloud), the release of new binary assemblies SeaMonkey does not get any easier. It also means that if at least one of the key members of the SeaMonkey project retires, the whole project will be threatened with becoming just a dead pile of unsupported code, which is even worse.

In addition, constantly lagging behind Firefox is, to put it mildly, difficult. Mozilla plans to stop supporting classic plug-ins and themes with the release of Firefox 57, which is just around the corner. XUL , one of the key technologies under the hood of SeaMonkey, will also soon go under the knife - its support will be discontinued in the near future. Based on modern web standards, technologies designed to fill the resulting vacuum are immature and are still in active development. The bottom line is that we probably need to rewrite the current program almost completely, from scratch. If it were not for our friends from the Thunderbird project, we would have had even worse.

The good news is that financially, we feel a little better than a year ago. DuckDuckGo is now the default search engine for SeaMonkey. Every time you use this particular machine to search in SeaMonkey, the project receives financial assistance. A small digression for lovers of conspiracy theories :) The lack of a simple and convenient way to change the default search engine in version 2.46 is a known problem , the workaround of which was documented in the Release Notes from the very beginning. The problem has now been fixed.

What is included in our plans

After the release of version 2.48, we will switch to the Firefox 52 ESR code for the 2.49.x versions. This means that the code base will be more or less frozen for several release cycles, and new fixes and security updates will be included in the new versions.

We have already discussed the problem with the infrastructure. Although it is critical, we do not yet have a final plan for its solution (including due to a lack of working hands). In this sense, the project Thunderbird is with us in the same boat, and we hope to come up with something together. In case of the worst outcome, we can ask our team member, Adrian Kalla , to release our official binary builds. Such a decision was discussed earlier, but so far has not been taken as final, since in this case we would lose the ability to automatically send diagnostic information ( crash symbols ) to Mozilla servers in case of failures.

Switching to the ESR branch gives us the opportunity to work on fixing problems in the current source tree for a little more time, without fear that the unresolved issues will be released. In any case, we will have to promptly fix the problems before the next release in the ESR branch.

The most critical issue is the addition of support for WebExtensions technology in one of the following versions. It is completely unclear how long we will be able to support classic expansion modules.

In nature, there are already many "forks" of the Gecko platform. We have no plans to move to one of them as the basis of SeaMonkey. We believe that each of these projects does not have enough of its own developers to "digest" the changes in the code base planned by the Mozilla project. Web technologies, in turn, are also constantly evolving, and we fear that other projects will not have enough powder to survive in this race.

In addition, we do not plan to independently support outdated technologies like classic expansion modules or NPAPI . We will make every effort as long as possible. But as soon as their support is removed from the main source tree, we cannot do anything. We have too few developers to maintain our own fork.

The fairness of the foregoing may change depending on how successful the Mozilla project is in the future.

What we lack

Creating your own infrastructure, potentially in collaboration with the Thunderbird project, will cost money. If you feel that you can help the project in this way, please consider donating: https://www.seamonkey-project.org/donate/ .

But to a much greater degree, we lack people. Even if you are not a developer, you can still help. For example, writing an article like this takes some time. Similarly, to support the website, alas, it is not enough day-to-day just to stare at it.

Therefore, if you want to help, you can apply your skills in one of the following areas:

• Development. Most of the code is a mixture of JavaScript or XML / CSS on the one hand, C ++ on the other, and Mozilla technologies like XUL . The SeaMonkey code currently doesn’t have that much HTML , but we may have to change this. The environment for the assembly in the tail and in the mane uses Python .
• Graphic design. Icons urgently need a "face lift" for screens with HiDPI resolution. The Mozilla project has plans to move to the SVG format, which implies a massive transformation of existing bitmap images. Taking into account the fact that SeaMonkey users in their mass are “oldfags”, any change in the user interface is not an easy task.
• Web site. Some sections are hopelessly outdated, and, again, someone has to write notes for each new release.
• Search and sort errors. We would not have refused if a few more people were engaged in analyzing error reports, reproducing problems and classifying them in Bugzilla. Although we are trying to control the situation, we especially lack such people in the realm of errors on the macOS platform. Creating lengthy discussions in newsgroups is fine, but if no one fixes a problem in Bugzilla, in the end, it will remain uncorrected.
• Everything else that we did not mention. If we forget something, you can still develop SeaMonkey in the direction you are interested in. Just think for a moment and tell us.

As a conclusion, SeaMonkey is unlikely to conquer the browser market in the foreseeable future. SeaMonkey is a niche product and will remain so. Too many people are no longer interested in the classic "combine", besides, most users tend to use "hipster" solutions. We are not trying to change this balance. To each his own.

We hope that SeaMonkey will continue to respond to the needs of experienced users like ourselves, as well as all those who need a "different" solution - a flexible and not trying to invent a new bike with the release of each new version. We are trying to listen to the advice / requirements / suggestions emanating from you, our users. Of course, we are unlikely to be able to realize everything that we want, and even the devil in a mortar to boot. But we believe that we can achieve at least something, and at the same time not lagging behind hopelessly from life. You decide.

If you want to help the project, send us ( the SeaMonkey Council ) a letter ( seamonkey-council at mozilla dot org ), ask for guidance in the official technical support groups , or simply start working on your favorite unassigned Bugzilla bug.

We are waiting for your feedback.

SeaMonkey Tip .