The distro (canonical/Ubuntu) didn’t do it: Mozilla did.
The reason probably being that for Canonical and Mozilla, it is a pain to support/backport multiple ubuntu versions, so why not just support 1 build.
It makes it simpler for them to release as it's directly integrated in their build system.
Considering how small a percentage linux users are, it isn't an illogical decision.
If offering a Deb is such a major issue for Mozilla, why are they still offering a distro-agnostic one that works just fine?
This whole story just doesn't make sense but fits in perfectly with Canonical's obsession with making snap a success.
[1] IIRC, it had to do with using the Firefox name even though Debian was lightly modifying sources to remove a couple of things. This was resolved a while ago and the Firefox branding resumed.
Most of that work is done by package maintainers that have an interest in the project and package the update for each release.
The projects that usually do make their own debs/rpms/whatever are usually backed by companies that have a strong interest in making their software easy to access. I guess mozilla should be in that group but they aren't.
MS releases full versions of code, Google Releases Chrome, you can get a terraform deb you can get neovim. Not really sure why FF doesn't release one but the way I understand it, FF is kinda back burner for Mozilla so who knows.
Lots of projects seem to producing DEB files. I think they're the most common shared distribution format except for maybe PKGBUILD files for Arch.
Loads of projects have their own package repositories but cross distro distributions like Flatpak and Snap tend to be recommended before the docs refer to the repositories. The extra two or three clicks necessary to get the repository URL seem to make a big difference in popularity.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1523551
> Matthias Versen [:Matti]
> Again, there was never a PPA by Mozilla but rather by the unofficial Mozilla-team and the Mozilla-Team is not Mozilla.
> They are AFAIK a group of people from the Ubuntu community who maintain and provide the Builds for Mozilla.org products for Ubuntu users.
> You have to ask at Ubuntu or ask directly the Members of the Ubuntu Mozilla-Team about the status of those builds and who generates them.
If Mozilla was so keen on snaps of their own accord why wouldn’t they be pushing other distros to also pack it up as a snap and/or Flatpak.
Additionally, it is being done by the same folks who drive development of linux-specific features (like wayland support or video decoding acceleration) anyway.
Its so they can screw with it instead of just shipping what Mozilla released.
Building the binaries themselves do. Mozilla does it few days in advance, so at the release they can push everything (and the binaries are available on the ftp.mozilla.org day before, uusually around 16:00 UTC). Other parties can start building their binaries only after the release.
In case of Fedora, it is pushed into the testing stream and only after positive feedback (or few days) it is pushed into the release. If you want it earlier, you can get the tested builds from bodhi (bodhi.fedoraproject.org). You can also see the status of all builds there.
> “This is the result of cooperation and collaboration between the [Ubuntu] Desktop and Snap teams at Canonical and Mozilla developers, and is the first step towards a deb-to-snap transition that will take place during the 22.04 development cycle,” Ubuntu desktop team’s Ken VanDine explains in a Discourse post.
This quote does not in any way support the claim that "Mozilla asked for it". Maybe find better sources for your info.
> Source?
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feature-freeze-exception-seed...