Bug#576392: iceweasel: Please don't remove the firefox symlinks; needed for portable invocation of Firefox

[Josh Triplett]

Package: iceweasel
Version: 3.5.9-2
Severity: normal

>From the iceweasel 3.5.9-1 changelog:

  * debian/iceweasel.links: Remove firefox and mozilla-firefox links.
    It will help make transition to Firefox easier if that ever happens.

Please don't do this.  The firefox symlink allows invoking
Firefox^WIceweasel in a way that works on multiple distros.  For
example, my metacity configuration binds a hotkey to 'firefox -new-tab
"about:blank"'.  I can't count on xdg-utils existing on arbitrary
systems, but until this change I could count on "firefox" existing on
arbitrary systems that had Firefox or equivalent installed.  This allows
me to share my configuration between systems running Debian and systems
running many other distributions.

If you want to make it easier to transition to Firefox in the future
(fingers crossed), what about an alternative (with a hypothetical future
Firefox package having a higher priority)?  Or a script which invokes
firefox.real if it exists and iceweasel if not?  Or, the easiest
solution, just have firefox conflict/replace/provide iceweasel. :)

But please, don't break the use of "firefox" to invoke the browser in a
portable way.

Thanks,
Josh Triplett

-- Addons package information
ii  iceweasel      3.5.9-2        Web browser based on Firefox
ii  xul-ext-adbloc 1.1.3-1        Advertisement blocking extension for web bro
ii  xul-ext-firebu 1.5.3-1        web development plugin for Iceweasel/Firefox
ii  xul-ext-itsall 1.4.1-1        Iceweasel/Firefox extension to edit textarea
ii  xul-ext-webdev 1.1.8-3        web developer extension for the Iceweasel we

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.33-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages iceweasel depends on:
ii  debianutils                   3.2.2      Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  fontconfig                    2.8.0-2    generic font configuration library
ii  libc6                         2.10.2-6   Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libglib2.0-0                  2.24.0-1   The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0                   2.20.0-2   The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libnspr4-0d                   4.8.4-1    NetScape Portable Runtime Library
ii  libstdc++6                    4.4.3-6    The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  procps                        1:3.2.8-8  /proc file system utilities
ii  psmisc                        22.10-1    utilities that use the proc file s
ii  xulrunner-1.9.1               1.9.1.9-3  XUL + XPCOM application runner

iceweasel recommends no packages.

Versions of packages iceweasel suggests:
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2              1.8+dfsg-1 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries - k
pn  mozplugger                    <none>     (no description available)
pn  ttf-lyx | latex-xft-fonts     <none>     (no description available)
pn  ttf-mathematica4.1            <none>     (no description available)
pn  xfonts-mathml                 <none>     (no description available)
pn  xprint                        <none>     (no description available)

Versions of packages xulrunner-1.9.1 depends on:
ii  libasound2              1.0.22-2         shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii  libatk1.0-0             1.30.0-1         The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbz2-1.0              1.0.5-4          high-quality block-sorting file co
ii  libc6                   2.10.2-6         Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcairo2               1.8.10-3         The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.2.24-1         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libfontconfig1          2.8.0-2          generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6            2.3.11-1         FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libgcc1                 1:4.4.3-6        GCC support library
ii  libglib2.0-0            2.24.0-1         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0             2.20.0-2         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libhunspell-1.2-0       1.2.8-6          spell checker and morphological an
ii  libjpeg62               6b-16.1          The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  libmozjs2d              1.9.1.9-3        The Mozilla SpiderMonkey JavaScrip
ii  libnspr4-0d             4.8.4-1          NetScape Portable Runtime Library
ii  libnss3-1d              3.12.6-1         Network Security Service libraries
ii  libpango1.0-0           1.28.0-1         Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpng12-0              1.2.43-1         PNG library - runtime
ii  libreadline6            6.1-1            GNU readline and history libraries
ii  libsqlite3-0            3.6.23-1         SQLite 3 shared library
ii  libstartup-notification 0.10-1           library for program launch feedbac
ii  libstdc++6              4.4.3-6          The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libx11-6                2:1.3.3-2        X11 client-side library
ii  libxrender1             1:0.9.5-2        X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  libxt6                  1:1.0.7-1        X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

-- no debconf information