Alexander Sack (asac)'s software site

Yesterday, I uploaded a first thunderbird 1.5.0.5 build. It fixes – as you might know – several security issues, applies several patches … so nothing unusual.

However, there is one interesting and maybe useful change: a patch which provides the core feature needed to make a reply-to-list extension possible in thunderbird.

I often red complains that thunderbird has no reply-to-list feature. Thus, I decided to ship this patch for etch. In general, I don’t add features upstream has not yet included. But this one looks important enough for me to not remember my own rules .

In order to make use of this feature, do this:

1. Install enigmail or mnenhy extension. I would suggest enigmail which is in the debian archive (aptitude install enigmail)
2. Install the Reply-To-List Extension from this address.
3. Press Ctrl+I (yes, Ctrl-L is already in use, sorry) in order to reply to list.
4. or add the Reply-To-List button to your toolbar and press that one.

Ah, here a screenshot,

Reply To List Button and Key-Binding in Debian Thunderbird 1.5.0.5

Anyone disagrees with the decision to ship this in etch?

Hi all,

we uploaded preview packages for the next security update of mozilla applications
in debian sarge.

This is the second maintenance release after mozilla foundation officially ended
support for the product versions we ship in sarge. The packages are based on the patches I
backported and announced a few days ago [1].

If you are a more or less advanced debian-sarge user (or developer) who wants to contribute and
you are using one of the mozilla apps, then please help by testing
this preview release and provide both, negative and positive feedback to pkg-mozilla-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org.

To test this release, please upgrade your favorite mozilla app from the sources given below.

The repository that contains the new packages can be found at http://people.debian.org/~asac/security.

The applications and versions of concern are:

• mozilla-firefox 1.0.4-2sarge10


• mozilla-thunderbird 1.0.2-2.sarge1.0.8b.1


• mozilla 1.7.8-1sarge7.2.1

You can either download the .debs manually or add the following to your apt sources.list:

deb http://people.debian.org/~asac/security ./

If you run into troubles with any of the new packages, chances are high this is due to some
extension that makes use of some corner-case feature. In order to help to track these cases down
you should disable your extensions one by one until you get rid of the problem. If you find the
extension that causes all the troubles, please don’t forget to mention its name and version.

Thanks for your support!

[1] – http://www.asoftsite.org/s9y/archives/112-Its-mozilla-patch-day!.html

... I have backported security fixes recently announced by mozilla for firefox and thunderbird to the old branch – which we have in debian stable.

You can grab the patchset I produced from http://people.debian.org/~asac/patchset_109b.tar.gz.

In it you find patches that fix:

• all security flaws whose security advisories had been announced together with firefox/thunderbird 1.5.0.5 – if applicable
• a tricky issue that had not been fixed in the last debian stable-security update for mozilla, mozilla-firefox and mozilla-thunderbird (aka mfsa2006-32, Part 2/7).
• two regressions introduced in our last stable-security update that broke some extensions.

Good news is that a bunch of critical flaws have been identified to not affect debian stable, namely:

Another good news is that MFSA2006-45 – which was recently /.ed with a working exploit – is in that list too. So debian stable users are not affected by that issue.

In order to get feedback and testing I am now preparing packages. Testing this is critical, because upstream has abandoned 1.0.x development. So please help to test and report regressions … otherwise those might go unseen and finally slip through to our users. I will announce new packages available for testing on my site and on the pkg-mozilla-maintainers mailing-list.

Thanks for your support!

Don’t you have a sense for anything, but your own selfishness …. haven’t you learned from what had happened to you more than 60 years ago?

Its not that I can’t see a reason for you bitterness …. but, the answers you choose is enough to probably deserve a life in hell … and don’t you see … that’s just what you get and will get in future if you don’t change your attitude.

“An eye for an eye” ... that was a few thousand years ago … now stop it, grow up and think different! Innovate!!

Update: For a more elaborative reading on this, consider to read the blogs of two of my Debian Developer fellows:

• http://oskuro.net/blog/life/lebanon-2006-07-31-16-26


• http://www.gwolf.org/index.php?blog/show/159