[Pkg-mozext-maintainers] Draft Mozilla extension packaging policy

[Alexander Sack]

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 12:43:33PM +0200, intrigeri at boum.org wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Mike Hommey wrote (01 Jul 2009 05:33:25 GMT) :
> > Actually, why a prefix at all ? If all extension packages Provide
> > something, they can surely be searched with that... All applications
> > targetted at gnome don't start with gnome- in their package name...
> 
> Having a look to the user-friendly GUI tools to find and install
> software:
> 
> The easiest tool I know of (and tell my non-geek friends to use),
> namely gnome-app-install, does not look at Provides:. E.g. a search on
> mail-transport-agent gives an empty result list. Same for "apt-cache
> search mail-transport-agent". Of course there are more elaborate ways
> to search this, but many non-geek users barely know how to use
> "apt-cache search"...
> 
> Synaptic provides a way to search for Provides:'ed packages.

In ubuntu we have gnome-app-install --xul-extensions=firefox to get
all firefox extensions in the archive. this is done by adding a
special mime-type called "xul-extensions/firefox" to .desktop files
shipped for extensions in app-install-data. This could be improved and
standardized if we want to adapt that in debian; find better ways to
do that in debian.

Further, ubuntu has a link "Get Ubuntu Extensions" in Tools-> Addons
-> Get Extensions which opens gnome-app-install just showing available
packaged extensions.
 
On top, in long run I could imagine to also add a distro backend to
the tools -> addons -> get extensions window in firefox/iceweasel (and
probably in thunderbird/icedove 3) which would then integrate even
better with the default addons experience.

What do you think?

 - Alexander