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<blockquote type="cite" style="margin-bottom: -20px !important;
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<div id="newHeaderAG1" style="font-size: x-small; padding:1em;
background-color:rgba(220,220,240,0.4); border-radius:3px;"> <b>Subject:</b>Re:
Are most of the existing add-ons being sacrificed due to
adding support for WebExtension?<br>
<b>From:</b>Jörg Knobloch <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jorgk@jorgk.com"><jorgk@jorgk.com></a><br>
<b>To:</b>Tb-planning <br>
<b>Sent: </b>Wednesday, 22/11/2017 06:36:50 06:36 GMT ST
+0000 [Week 47]<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:445c6eee-1189-b5fd-9e0b-b133d96b2393@jorgk.com"
id="mid_445c6eee_1189_b5fd_9e0b_b133d96b2393_jorgk_com" class="
cite">On 22/11/2017 04:08, Eric Moore wrote: <br>
<blockquote type="cite" id="Cite_4548993" class=" cite">"In
general, there have been many interface/IDL changes over the
mozilla57/58/59 period and some changes to JS syntax that most
add-ons will require some sort of update to their code. That
will distinguish the "maintained" add-ons from the
"unmaintained" add-ons some/most of which will stop working. <br>
<br>
.... <br>
<br>
Jörg." <br>
<br>
Who made the decision to essentially kill off legacy add-ons and
when was it made? <br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>no, there was a decison on the Mozilla main code base to stop
supporting XPCOM access and the XUL technology. This hasn't been
made on the mail dev side; we are still dealing with the code
changes floating across via the shared code base from
mozilla-central.</p>
<p>AFAIK there is no short term plan to phase out these technologies
from Thunderbird Addons. Their hosting will be moved to a
different domain (not remain on addons.mozilla.org), and obviously
this will open up a whole slew of other problems (who will review
source code for security?). As regards code, Thunderbird will have
to make the decision of decoupling the code (forking) from Mozilla
soon or otherwise render our legacy Addons unusable.</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite">That legacy add-ons will be "killed off"
is your interpretation. The truth is, that most add-ons will
need updates to their code. That's normal, since interfaces to
Mozilla-core change over time. Like nsILocalFile was replaced
with nsIFile years ago, so no add-on had to break when
nsILocalFile was finally removed recently. It is true though
that many interfaces have changed recently as Firefox was moving
to Quantum (which appears to be quite a success for Mozilla). <br>
<br>
Personally I can tell you that I'm using only a handful of
add-ons and I've informed authors of changes so all the ones I
use still work at TB 57. <br>
</blockquote>
It's quite a bit of work keeping up but it is not fundamentally
different what we have done over thee years anyway. What's a
little bit painful are the (necessary) innovations in JavaScript
which lead to breaking changes that will make Postbox
compatibility (which has a <i>very</i> old codebase) on an
unforked ADdon pretty much impossible. However Thunderbird still
supports XPCOM and XUL which are so fundamental to legacy and the
huge customisability of our Addons that removing them makes low
level stuff impossible (as experienced with my Fx addon
QuickPAsswords - I have looked into ways of recreating it as
WebExtension and so far am very pessimistic as it is impossible
with the current APIS. We cannot evene open a tab with the stored
passwords as it is on a privileged URL, there is no API for <code><a
href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/Reference/Interface/nsILoginManager"
title="">nsILoginManager</a> </code>effectively shutting of
low level access to anything password / credential related)</p>
<p>So as long as Thunderbird allows XPCOM our Addons are safe and
can be kept compatible with a reasonable amount of effort. Of
course it helps to have some people on the Tb team who reach out
and help - Jörg is one of the most importat people as he is
developing core code and also cares about Addon authors.</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite">The only alternative to following the
interface changes is to fork a version where most add-ons still
work. That would be mozilla57. There has been much discussion
about a fork. In general, the Council, the Engineering Steering
Committee and the developer community all agree that a fork is
undesirable, since we have neither knowledge nor manpower to
keep up with security patches. So the consensus is to try making
it to mozilla59 ESR and then keep going as long as possible
without a fork. </blockquote>
I agree that this buys us some time (even though it is slightly
awkward for use Addon authors) but the move to a fork is
ultimately unavoidable. If parts of the XPCOM interfaces are
rewritten or dropped now at a more dramatic rate we are going to
get a hard time finding alternative ways of coding workarounds.
ALso what we will see is a lot of dropping of backwards
compatibility, again something that becomes unavoidable as the
code progresses.<br>
</p>
<p>Axel</p>
<div id="mySignature"> <b class="myName"><a
href="mailto:axel.grude@gmail.com">Axel Grude</a></b> <br>
Music Production and Composition <br>
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer <span class="AddonList">(<a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/quickfolders-tabbed-folders/">QuickFolders</a>,
<a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/quickfilters/">quickFilters</a>,
<a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/quickpasswords/">QuickPasswords</a>,
<a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/zombie-keys/">Zombie
Keys</a>, <a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/smarttemplate4/">SmartTemplate4</a>)</span>
<br>
Visit my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/thunderbirddaily">YouTube
Channel</a> for email productivity tips <img style="margin-top:
1em; float: right; box-shadow: 1px 1px 2px rgba(20, 20, 20,
0.4);" moz-do-not-send="false" class="myLogo"
src="cid:part9.2193AA71.F063C15F@gmail.com" alt="Get
Thunderbird!" height="15" width="94"> </div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite" id="Cite_4548993" class=" cite"> <br>
Who was aware of that decision? <br>
<br>
Why wasn't this treated as a strategic decision that needed
feedback/discussion like was done with getting a new home? </blockquote>
<br>
Hi Eric, <br>
<br>
what you write sounds like someone on the Thunderbird project has
made decisions which negatively affect TB. That is not the case. <br>
<br>
That legacy add-ons will be "killed off" is your interpretation.
The truth is, that most add-ons will need updates to their code.
That's normal, since interfaces to Mozilla-core change over time.
Like nsILocalFile was replaced with nsIFile years ago, so no
add-on had to break when nsILocalFile was finally removed
recently. It is true though that many interfaces have changed
recently as Firefox was moving to Quantum (which appears to be
quite a success for Mozilla). <br>
<br>
Personally I can tell you that I'm using only a handful of add-ons
and I've informed authors of changes so all the ones I use still
work at TB 57. <br>
<br>
No one has made any decision, the facts are imposed on us by
changes in Mozilla-core. All people actively involved with the
development of TB were aware of the never-ending bustage coming in
from Mozilla-core. <br>
<br>
The only alternative to following the interface changes is to fork
a version where most add-ons still work. That would be mozilla57.
There has been much discussion about a fork. In general, the
Council, the Engineering Steering Committee and the developer
community all agree that a fork is undesirable, since we have
neither knowledge nor manpower to keep up with security patches.
So the consensus is to try making it to mozilla59 ESR and then
keep going as long as possible without a fork. <br>
<br>
I hope that answers your query. <br>
<br>
Jörg. <br>
<br>
_______________________________________________ <br>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning">https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning</a> <br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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