14:59:38 <richard> #startmeeting Tor Browser Weekly Meeting 2022-10-24
14:59:38 <MeetBot> Meeting started Mon Oct 24 14:59:38 2022 UTC.  The chair is richard. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
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14:59:39 <henry-x> hello
14:59:41 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> Hi!
14:59:51 <richard> meeting pad as always: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-tbb-keep
14:59:55 * Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m] is surprised that I remembered to fill out the pad ahead of time
15:00:10 * Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m] hopes I've turned over a new leaf and this will be a trend
15:01:15 <richard> so I don' thave any discussion points this week
15:01:41 <richard> in terms of release schedule, 11.5.5 should be signed today
15:02:03 <PieroV> \o/
15:02:32 <richard> boklm: I haven't caught up on email yet, so if you've signed the 11.5.5 apks thanks, if not can do that after the meeting?
15:02:45 <boklm> richard: yes, I signed them
15:02:58 <richard> then thanks it is :)
15:03:00 * dan_b woke up late but is now caught up writing
15:03:34 <boklm> richard: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/40628#note_2846845
15:04:00 <richard> and I'm hoping to start 12.0a4 release prep once I've finished signing 11.5.5
15:04:21 <richard> so if there are any more things to get into the alpha get those MRs out
15:04:26 <richard> ok beyond that do we have any bolded items?
15:04:31 * richard skims
15:04:36 <PieroV> richard: I think some issues might be moved from ~Next to ~Backlog, if ~Next is still for 12.0a4
15:04:50 <dan_b> you said there was a build error with goservice in the nightlies yeah?
15:04:51 <PieroV> I'd like to get my final MR for multilang in it
15:05:03 <PieroV> (which happens to be a bolded item, too)
15:05:11 <richard> makes sense to me
15:05:13 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> dan_b: uh oh, goservice is one of my things, yes?
15:05:28 <richard> dan_b: yes i think so
15:05:29 <PieroV> dan_b: yes. Do you receive emails about nightly builds?
15:05:29 <boklm> yes, I opened a ticket for the goservice error
15:05:37 <dan_b> https://tb-build-05.torproject.org/~richard/logs/goservice-linux-x86_64.log
15:06:01 <boklm> tor-browser-build#40659
15:06:04 <PieroV> (do dan_b, ma1 and henry-x know about nightly builds and their emails?)
15:06:18 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> boklm: can you tag me in the ticket?  I'm guessing it's simple to fix, but if you guys can't get it dealt with easily, I can try to investigate it.
15:06:20 <dan_b> PieroV: hmmm... don't think so?
15:06:35 <boklm> it might be a good idea to add them to the email
15:06:42 <PieroV> dan_b: we have nightly builds (they take more than one day atm, so they're not really nighly builds :P)
15:06:47 <henry-x> I don't get any nightly build emails
15:06:58 <richard> henry-x: if you haven't started already, I'd suggest going with qemu and virt-manager over virtual box for setting up VMs
15:07:09 <richard> if only because setting up macOS vms is v easy with qemu
15:07:19 <PieroV> When they finish, they send an email, that tells which platforms worked and which ones failed
15:07:24 <richard> and in my experience the two don't play well together
15:08:08 <PieroV> +1 for Qemu, VirtualBox's bios needed to be compiled with proprietary tools a while ago, and it was moved to contrib in Debian, I don't know if other distributions did something, too
15:08:16 <PieroV> And Qemu is more performant
15:08:32 <boklm> Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]: ok, done
15:08:47 <richard> (I only brought up virtual box because it's what I initially used back in the day and discovered it didn't play well with others)
15:08:48 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> boklm: I don't recognize the `gspt` dependency that it says is missing, did that maybe get added because some other dependency got bumped?
15:08:49 <PieroV> For Windows you can use official MS images, too. They don't ship the Qemu image, but VMWare's works fine also with Qemu (and it's very compressed, too)
15:09:03 <henry-x> I was going to use GNOME boxes, which apparently uses QEMU
15:09:06 <boklm> Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]: I think it's related with the go version update
15:09:11 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> (I mean, maybe that dependency was always there and I've forgotten about it)
15:09:29 <richard> dan_b: I would hold off on the go1.4 and other go stuff (beyond the build failure) until after 12.0
15:10:11 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> boklm: yeah could be, though it's odd that a Go stdlib update would cause some random github.com repo to get pulled in.
15:10:26 <PieroV> Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]: we worked on go recently
15:10:29 <richard> in favor of other open FF102-esr labeled issues
15:11:12 <dan_b> so go got upgraded to 1.19 and i updated goxsys to HEAD of a few days ago as well
15:11:18 <dan_b> that was it I believe on my end
15:12:25 <dan_b> ok I can def wait on further go work!
15:12:28 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> boklm: if adding that dependency as a new project doesn't solve it, a fallback fix would maybe be to disable cgo for all of the Namecoin Go projects.  They should build fine without cgo, and the only thing they use cgo for is privilege dropping, which is not a thing in Tor Browser's usage.
15:14:52 <richard> boklm: can you prioritize signing a macos aarch64 testbuild tomorrow?
15:15:07 <boklm> richard: ok, I can do that
15:17:32 <richard> ok, beyond that I think everything looks good here
15:17:39 <PieroV> I have a bolded item
15:17:39 <richard> if there's nothing else from anyone else here I'm happy to adjourn
15:17:47 <PieroV> For the language order
15:18:00 <boklm> I will start an aarch64 testbuild now to have it ready for signing tomorrow
15:18:12 <PieroV> I have a MR that sets it in code order, but it hasn't been reviewed, and merged
15:18:17 <richard> boklm: ack
15:18:18 <ma1> ah, did emmapeel say anything about that?
15:18:47 <richard> PieroV: i'm happy to merge it as is and open a ticket later for localization review
15:18:52 <ma1> re: lang order, the current code lgtm, but I was waiting for the final "political" decision.
15:18:59 <richard> some light reading on the topic doesn't suggest a 'right' way to do it
15:19:05 <PieroV> ma1: okay
15:19:22 <PieroV> I think emmapeel said to follow the site?
15:19:34 <PieroV> And the site is ordered by language code, from what I can see
15:19:46 <ma1> So like the current patch
15:19:48 <PieroV> Except for English
15:19:55 <PieroV> Which is set as first
15:19:58 <richard> the only alternative I would consider is initially having the top N commonly used locales at the top (similar to how se prioritize certain countries in connection assist)
15:20:25 <richard> but... we're about to lose metrics on that once we only have multi-locale bundles
15:20:55 <henry-x> The ordering has to kind of work with any language packs that the user may have installed as well
15:20:56 <PieroV> okay, so let's stop the multi-locale thing :P
15:21:03 <ma1> Having English as first lets you switch to English if you're lost and go from there to pick yours.
15:21:09 <richard> so currently it'd be like, English, Russian, German, and Farsi
15:21:31 <henry-x> I wouldn't put english first. Just use the code ordering.
15:21:49 <PieroV> I could understand having English as first for the reason ma1 says, but don't like it that much
15:22:02 <PieroV> But I really dislike richard's alternative
15:22:30 <donuts> I don't think the list is long enough to warrant pinning popular languages
15:22:41 <donuts> the use case is also pretty different for connection assist
15:22:53 <donuts> we're really just pinning the countries we have settings for there
15:23:00 <PieroV> re language packs, we don't have a list of languages we support, at the moment
15:23:27 <PieroV> We could hack a preference that is filled by tor-browser-build to avoid having multiple lang lists, and follow it
15:23:47 <richard> I agree with the above fwiw
15:23:56 <henry-x> what do you mean by "multiple lang lists"?
15:24:13 <richard> (and why don't the locale lists in rbm.conf count?)
15:24:29 <PieroV> So, that languages we officially support are always first, even when users had old profiles with additional langpacks (downloads are disabled now) or install them manually
15:24:50 <PieroV> henry-x | what do you mean by "multiple lang lists"? <-- currently we have rbm.conf, which is the authoritative one
15:25:18 <PieroV> But we have to update translations on torbutton and version them
15:25:30 <henry-x> oh, so you don't want to re-specifiy the same list in different places?
15:25:41 <richard> not if we can help it :D
15:25:42 <PieroV> Exactly, because keeping things in sync is difficult
15:26:16 <PieroV> Once we complete tor-browser#40924, we will not need to import translations in that way anymore
15:26:30 <PieroV> But rather update the translation repo commit hash in tor-browser-build
15:26:38 <PieroV> And we'll finally use only the list of rbm.conf
15:26:56 <PieroV> (but at the moment we don't have a way to tell Firefox the list of rbm.conf, afaik)
15:28:16 <richard> donuts: do you know if we have a design ticket for the website updates needed
15:28:32 <donuts> for Alpha, yes
15:28:33 <richard> since we no longer need the language list in alpha?
15:28:35 <donuts> not for stable yet
15:29:02 <donuts> https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/lego/-/issues/53
15:29:47 <donuts> please feel free to input there, and we'll make the changes happen
15:30:25 * donuts adds ~For Applications team
15:31:12 <richard> henry-x: can you take a look at our Windows installer and see if it needs to be tweaked/upated as well?
15:32:04 <richard> I'll open a ticket for that
15:32:17 <henry-x> I've never worked with anything on Windows. I would need some direction
15:33:39 <donuts> follow the friendly paperclip across the grassy field under a clear blue sky, there you will find a man named william gates
15:33:45 <donuts> he is the wizard of windows
15:33:49 <richard> lol
15:33:54 <henry-x> haha
15:34:30 <richard> p much I don't quite recall what our windows installer UX is like and if there's anything relevant to locales in there so we should make sure we don't need to update our nsis configuration
15:35:04 <richard> maybe long-term we can pre-set the user's chosen locale from the nsis installer itself
15:35:05 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> I'm almost certain I recall something locale-related in the NSIS script, from when I had to mess with it half a year ago
15:35:09 <PieroV> Nobody really knows anything about the Windows installer... And if they do, they wish they don't have to deal with it :P
15:35:17 <richard> i vaguely remember that being a thing in windows land
15:35:34 <PieroV> It prompts for the locale to use for the installation
15:35:42 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> PieroV: honestly I don't find NSIS that painful
15:35:53 <PieroV> But I haven't modified the NSIS script to somehow inject it in the preferences
15:36:00 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> Everything in the macOS ecosystem makes me about 10x as stressed as the NSIS stuff
15:36:34 <PieroV> Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]: do you know that it has assembly code in it, that compiles only with MASM and GCC?
15:36:41 <PieroV> Call me biased, but that was enough for me :P
15:36:42 <boklm> our windows installer NSIS script is in tor-browser-build/projects/browser/windows-installer/torbrowser.nsi
15:37:22 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> PieroV: compared to literally every other Windows installer system, which can't cross-compile without Wine, I'll take whatever NSIS has
15:38:05 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> Maybe I'm just accustomed to Windows things doing insane stuff
15:38:23 <PieroV> Yeah, I don't know about the others
15:38:51 <PieroV> But it's one of the two projects preventing us to get rid of GCC on Windows, at the moment. The other one is Rust
15:39:15 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> PieroV: yeah, don't ever try to use InnoSetup or PyInstaller if you think NSIS is bad :P
15:40:14 <richard> clearly we should just package it as an appx once win7 support is dropped from firefox
15:40:18 * richard has said too much
15:40:40 <dan_b> hahaha
15:40:49 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> richard: is that the same thing as MSIX or is there some other "X" thing in Windows now?
15:41:08 <PieroV> Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]: I think it's the format of Windows Store?
15:41:14 <richard> vOv i'm afraid all of my windows knowledge is 5 years out of date at this point
15:41:30 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> PieroV: I'm almost certain MSIX is a Windows Store thing too
15:41:43 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> You can distribute MSIX installers outside of the Store too though
15:41:44 <PieroV> Okay, then you probably know more than me :D
15:42:02 <richard> yeah it was originally for their windows 8 UDP/UWP apps, but they extended it to native win32 for use in their store at some point in the past N years
15:42:42 <richard> but anywya
15:42:43 * ma1 has heard too much
15:42:47 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> Anyway I briefly investigated MSIX for Namecoin and gave up when I discovered that MSIX only recently added support for services, and they don't let you use sandboxed service accounts, for Satan knows what reason
15:43:10 <richard> i think we can worry about app packaging and distribution in general for 12.5
15:43:20 <richard> beyond 'just get it working' we're at now
15:43:35 <richard> any other bold points I've missed?
15:43:38 <PieroV> Last thing maybe from me for 12.0a4
15:43:44 <richard> mk
15:43:44 <PieroV> We should really call for test test and test
15:43:54 <PieroV> For tor-launcher and multi-lingual
15:44:04 <donuts> yess, I can ping comms
15:44:10 <PieroV> Thanks <3
15:44:35 <richard> yeah agreed :)
15:44:42 <donuts> A dedicated forum post would be great as well
15:44:50 <donuts> maybe community can help with that
15:45:03 <richard> 12.0a4's changelog is going to be *MASSIVE*
15:45:04 <donuts> I'll bring up at the UX team meeting tomorrow
15:45:19 <henry-x> did we have any automated tests that covered some of the tor-launcher stuff?
15:45:26 <dan_b> yeah poor flutter launched with win desktop support packaging for UWP and MS had like already announced UWP deprecation
15:45:41 <dan_b> they've since updated to MSIX which i assume is some new x version of .msi ?
15:45:43 <PieroV> henry-x: I think we used the old launcher for the few tests we had
15:45:48 <dan_b> for Cwtch we also use NSIS
15:45:49 <donuts> is our ETA for release still the 28th?
15:45:55 <richard> henry-x: we *used* to in tor-browser-bundle-testsuite
15:46:29 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> dan_b: remind me to chat with you sometime about Cwtch and Flutter, I'd like to run some brainstorms past you...
15:46:38 <dan_b> any time!
15:46:49 <dan_b> grab me in IRC
15:46:56 <dan_b> or i m up for voice on bbb
15:47:46 <richard> ok i'm going to call it then
15:47:50 <richard> have a good week everyone!
15:47:53 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> dan_b: yeah sure, will reach out once the Outreachy excitement has calmed down a bit :)
15:47:57 <Jeremy_Rand_36C3[m]> Thanks richard !
15:47:57 <PieroV> Thanks, good week!
15:48:02 <richard> #endmeeting