[desktop-discuss] Firefox build names are too long

[Hugh McIntyre]

Robert G. Sohigian wrote:
> 
> Why are these names so darn long?
> 
>  firefox-3.0a3.en-US.solaris11-i386.tar.bz2
>  firefox-3.0a3.en-US.solaris11-sparc.tar.bz2
> 
> Here are some thoughts:
> 
>    solaris11: afaik, there is no such thing as "solaris11", and it 
> shouldn't be used

Probably there will be a "Solaris 11" at some point though, and it's 
less cryptic than "snv".  Even if there isn't, it's a less cryptic way 
of referring to "the version after Solaris 10".  Consider a Solaris user 
who is not keeping track of OpenSolaris and does not want to download a 
build which won't run on Solaris 10 or earlier by mistake...

>    i386: 386 went away awhile ago... why not x86?

"isainfo" says "i386".  As does "uname -p".

>    en-US: are there other English versions which will be used?
> Actually, why have "en-US" at all? I mean, if all we're delivering is 
> this version, I don't understand why we have to spell it out.

Personally I'm OK if you want to shorten this, but one day there might 
be localized builds, and/or non English speakers might want to be warned 
that they are getting an English build.

Are the length of the names really such an issue?  It's not like you 
need to type them if you download the files via a browser.  [Yes, I'm 
aware there's a chicken-and-egg issue here, but most people probably do 
have an older browser to start the download with.]

> So, something like:
> 
>  firefox-3.0a3-snv-x86.tar.bz2
>  firefox-3.0a3-snv-sparc.tar.bz2 

"snv" is too cryptic, IMHO at least, even though I know what it means.

> would work just fine, right?

Hugh.