[tbb-bugs] #19528 [Applications/Tor Browser]: The build id stays the same with every Firefox update

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#19528: The build id stays the same with every Firefox update
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 Reporter:  gk                                 |          Owner:  tbb-team
     Type:  defect                             |         Status:
                                               |  needs_information
 Priority:  Medium                             |      Milestone:
Component:  Applications/Tor Browser           |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                             |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  tbb-gitian, TorBrowserTeam201608R  |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                     |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                     |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by gk):

 Replying to [comment:20 boklm]:
 > Replying to [comment:19 gk]:
 > > I am not sure I understand the need for a hard-coded oldest supported
 ESR version? Could you elaborate?
 > >
 > > I am interested in getting rid of hard-coding the year as well but
 have not looked at how we could do  that yet.
 >
 > When `MOZ_BUILD_DATE` is not set, the buildid is the current date. With
 the changes from this ticket we are converting the firefox version to a
 number that looks like a date, that we set in `MOZ_BUILD_DATE`. However
 the ESR branch (currently 45) is used as the month in the buildid number,
 but 45 is not a valid month so we need to subtract something if we want it
 to look like a valid date.
 >
 > If we don't care about `MOZ_BUILD_DATE` containing an invalid date, we
 could stop adding a year and subtracting something to the ESR version. But
 I don't know if some part of the build would break if `MOZ_BUILD_DATE` is
 not a valid date, or if it can work with any number.

 I think we should care about getting a valid date out of it (at least it
 can't hurt). What I do not understand is the need for hard-coding the
 oldest supported ESR version. Why can't we extract a version from the
 parameter the script get passed anyway (in fact the major ESR version does
 already get extracted)? It seems to me there always will be times where
 the alphas and the stable series share build ids which does not seem to be
 bad to me. So, what is your motivation for hard-coding that number?

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19528#comment:21>
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