[Pkg-mozext-maintainers] XUL Extensions policy directory question

[Alexander Sack]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 03:35:11PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 03:30:20PM +0100, Alexander Sack wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 02:14:28PM +0000, Alan Woodland wrote:
> > > 2009/11/25 Mike Hommey <mh at glandium.org>:
> > > > On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 01:25:57PM +0100, Alexander Sack wrote:
> > > >> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 01:03:05PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote:
> > > >> > On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 12:58:16PM +0100, Alexander Sack wrote:
> > > >> > > One concern raised by mozilla on a canonical location for _all_
> > > >> > > extensions that only work for some targetapplications - and why we
> > > >> > > probably do not want to put everything in common - is that startup
> > > >> > > performance will get a hit for nothing if an app has to parse extensions
> > > >> > > that are not going to work anyway.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > The startup performance hit should only apply after an extension has been
> > > >> > installed. Not in other cases.
> > > >>
> > > >> Right. still there is no real win from putting it into common ... imo
> > > >> not something we should put into policy (packages can do that if they
> > > >> want, but I wouldnt like to make a best practice out of it).
> > > >
> > > > The advantage is that once the common directory is supported upstream,
> > > > there would be no need to modify mozilla-devscripts and rebuild *all* the
> > > > extensions packages to support any new application id.
> > > 
> > > That could always be handled in postinst with the current
> > > mozilla-devscripts anyway. Better yet couldn't we use the triggers
> > > mechanism to manage this without having to rebuild all the extensions?
> > 
> > Hmm ... i thought that mozilla-devscripts create links for _all_
> > targetapplications anyway, so if a new targetapplication gets added it
> > happens through a new upload/rebuild anyway. Only thing it doesn't do
> > right for not-yet-known applications is figuring the right depends,
> > but i think that is acceptable.
> > 
> > Benjamin, can you confirm that md creates those links even for unknown
> > target applications found?
> 
> mozilla-devscripts may be doing the right thing, but far from all the
> extensions packages are using it. Also, that would mean mandating that
> extensions must create the links for all target applications.
> 
> I'm sorry, but the common directory solution is better.

Let's not argue about what is better and worse ... both have their
benefits. All I wanted to say is that requiring extensions to use the
common directory by policy is overly strict as there are "better" ways
to do that if you use advanced tools.

So let's offer the "common" directory as one way to do it while
keeping the ability to place properly targetted links in the right
directories too.

 - Alexander