Gecko-dev Diary
Between August 2023 and September 2024 I upgrading the Sailfish OS browser from Gecko version ESR 78 to ESR 91, writing a daily blog as I went along. This page catalogues my progress, alongside the other browser-related topics I've looked in to since.
Latest code changes are in the gecko-dev sailfishos-esr91 branch.
There is an index of all posts in case you want to jump to a particular day.
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20 Jul 2024 : Day 294 #
No coding today. Almost every day the first thing I do is dive into the code: reading it, writing it, debugging it. After 294 days (with a few gaps, admittedly) I've grown accustomed to this way of working. Diving in to the code each morning has been comforting: a natural context switch between the harsh vagaries of the world and the reassuring consistency of the source.
(I'm overdoing it of course. Many times the code has been frustrating, incomprehensible and capricious. But I'm going to forget that today for the sake of a more convenient narrative).
The point I'm trying to get to is that, like a furry friend in a nineties Grolsch advert, the browser is not ready yet. But despite that, it feels like it's time for a step change. From focusing entirely on development to figuring out where things go from here and how the browser actually gets into users' hands.
So no coding today. Instead I'm going to be looking through the issues on GitHub, replying to comments and trying to figure out the best way to make packages available.
Things could fail disastrously at this point. If the browser goes out too early and doesn't have the functionality people are expecting, then all this effort will be wasted. On the other hand, I know the Sailfish community is driven by optimism and a sense of adventure: willing to try experimental software and also understanding that there are some sacrifices needed for the sake of user freedoms.
But the entire motivation for this work comes from an understanding that a phone needs a browser. It's critical infrastructure, not nice-to-have. So it really does have to work. In fact, ESR 91 has to work better than ESR 78 if the effort is going to have been worth it.
So let me talk briefly about what I've actually done today. Raine (rainemak) has gone to the trouble of testing out the code using the latest internal Jolla development build of Sailfish OS and the Sailfish SDK. When the next version of Sailfish OS is released, it'll be a version of this build and built using this SDK, so the browser has to work with it.
Raine had to make some changes to get it to work and I had a look through the changes. The changes Raine made to embedlite-components aligned with changes that I'd also had to make, so that's an easy case. But for the gecko-dev repository things are a bit more unexpected. To get things to run Raine has also had to make various changes to the privileged JavaScript.
After looking through Raine's PRs I need to incorporate his changes into mine, update my SDK to the latest Early Access release (4.6.0.1) and rebuild everything using that from scratch. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to do that today, but I'll pick it up tomorrow and spend a bit more time on it.
Doing this non-coding work is important, but I find I'm not very efficient at it and it's harder to gauge progress compared to making commits. But I'm hoping it's also a sign of where things are at with the browser. It feels like this is the start of the descent towards our destination.
If you'd like to read any of my other gecko diary entries, they're all available on my Gecko-dev Diary page.
(I'm overdoing it of course. Many times the code has been frustrating, incomprehensible and capricious. But I'm going to forget that today for the sake of a more convenient narrative).
The point I'm trying to get to is that, like a furry friend in a nineties Grolsch advert, the browser is not ready yet. But despite that, it feels like it's time for a step change. From focusing entirely on development to figuring out where things go from here and how the browser actually gets into users' hands.
So no coding today. Instead I'm going to be looking through the issues on GitHub, replying to comments and trying to figure out the best way to make packages available.
Things could fail disastrously at this point. If the browser goes out too early and doesn't have the functionality people are expecting, then all this effort will be wasted. On the other hand, I know the Sailfish community is driven by optimism and a sense of adventure: willing to try experimental software and also understanding that there are some sacrifices needed for the sake of user freedoms.
But the entire motivation for this work comes from an understanding that a phone needs a browser. It's critical infrastructure, not nice-to-have. So it really does have to work. In fact, ESR 91 has to work better than ESR 78 if the effort is going to have been worth it.
So let me talk briefly about what I've actually done today. Raine (rainemak) has gone to the trouble of testing out the code using the latest internal Jolla development build of Sailfish OS and the Sailfish SDK. When the next version of Sailfish OS is released, it'll be a version of this build and built using this SDK, so the browser has to work with it.
Raine had to make some changes to get it to work and I had a look through the changes. The changes Raine made to embedlite-components aligned with changes that I'd also had to make, so that's an easy case. But for the gecko-dev repository things are a bit more unexpected. To get things to run Raine has also had to make various changes to the privileged JavaScript.
After looking through Raine's PRs I need to incorporate his changes into mine, update my SDK to the latest Early Access release (4.6.0.1) and rebuild everything using that from scratch. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to do that today, but I'll pick it up tomorrow and spend a bit more time on it.
Doing this non-coding work is important, but I find I'm not very efficient at it and it's harder to gauge progress compared to making commits. But I'm hoping it's also a sign of where things are at with the browser. It feels like this is the start of the descent towards our destination.
If you'd like to read any of my other gecko diary entries, they're all available on my Gecko-dev Diary page.
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