Bug#742531: keyword.URL preference ignored after upgrade to version 23+

E Taylor hagfish at hagfish.name
Tue Mar 25 09:25:26 UTC 2014


Hi Sylvestre,

>> It would be nice if any user-defined value for the keyword.URL
>> preference could be used to automatically set the default search engine
>> after upgrade.
> Why do you think Debian should carry and maintain such changes?

Why do I think that a Debian package should keep its settings after
upgrade?  Because "Our priorities are our users and free software".

As I see it, this is just a case of a config file format change, and
typically a Debian package would try to help the user preserve any
user-set value after upgrade.  Also, as in the example I gave, this
unannounced change of behaviour could lead to someone leaking sensitive
search terms out to an unintended third party, which has
privacy/security implications.

This issue seems similar to:
    https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720968
where there seemed to be some quite strong demand that a
privacy/security setting be preserved and not trampled on by an upstream
change.  It appears that you marked that bug as wontfix rather than
leaving open the wishlist request that the user's settings survive a
package upgrade, or they at least be warned about this.  I can only
humbly ask that this bug report does not suffer the same fate, and that
you consider at least including a warning to users about how to preserve
their settings.

Best regards,
Edwin



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