thunderbird / thunderbird/developer-docs

Building esr versions of Thunderbird addendum

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Description

The build documentation applies to comm-central.
It will probably work for comm-beta since it's relatively similar to comm-central.

Building an ESR version gets complicated the further out from its initial release. The provided tools like mach bootstrap and --enable-bootstrap don't always work. Official builds are pinned to specific compiler versions and don't really get updated unless necessary. And "bootstrap" mode is not used.

There seems to be a growing number of people rebuilding Thunderbird ESR versions for one reason or another, it would help to have some documentation that doesn't involve "use bootstrap".

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the existing comm-central build documentation, then compare how comm-beta and ESR builds differ from the documented mach bootstrap and --enable-bootstrap paths. Done means documenting a practical ESR build process, including the required pinned compiler versions and how to build without bootstrap mode.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
build-system, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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