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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 06-10-2019 12:33, John Bieling
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:a1930879-27fb-263c-d690-ad3957fc761c@gmx.de">
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<p>Hi,</p>
<p>so learning WebExt is inevitable now. I have to start from
scratch. My current knowledge about WebExt: Zero. That is going
to be a hard time.</p>
<p>I will have a lot of questions, which probably only core
developers can answer. But I think tb-planning is not the right
place to ask them, but <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com" moz-do-not-send="true">https://thunderbird.topicbox.com</a>,
correct?<br>
</p>
<p>As we really need support of core devs to help us, will you
follow topics there? Time is running fast and answers are needed
fast. Will you be there?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/addons/">https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/addons/</a> would indeed be
the best place to ask.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:a1930879-27fb-263c-d690-ad3957fc761c@gmx.de">
<p> </p>
<p>One question is of general nature and thus I want to ask it
here: <b>Why will WebExt Experiments be disabled in a few
years?</b></p>
</blockquote>
<p>When everything deemed essential is available through WX APIs,
there is little reason not to use that instead. <br>
</p>
<p>From the Thunderbird core point of view, we want our users to
have long time stability, and that also includes essential
add-ons. Forcing users to rely on an experiment (which can easily
have a bumpy ride, and stop being maintained) is not ideal. Many
times with Web Experiments you'll still be using and relying on
Mozilla internal technologies, many of which can and will change
or disappear over the years. <br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:a1930879-27fb-263c-d690-ad3957fc761c@gmx.de">
<p>We are in this situation, because Firefox/Mozilla decided, that
WebExt is the new thing. If Firefox would not have done that, we
would be still be able to create powerful add-ons, which can do
almost everything. There has never been a security issue with
Thunderbird extensions. The reason Firefox closed WebExt
Experiments, are security issues, I think.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is a security issue with current style add-ons: They can do
anything per design - but that's not a desired design related to
security. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:a1930879-27fb-263c-d690-ad3957fc761c@gmx.de">
<p>I can understand, that we need to follow the WebExt path, but
disabling WebExt Experiments is your own choice, right? If
WebExt Experiments do allow us to do all the things we need, why
are we not allowed to use them (later)? <br>
</p>
<p>Sure, if there are WebExt Experiments, that are of general use,
they should be moved as MailExtension API to core. But there
will be experiments, that will be useful only to a single
add-on. Why should that be moved into core? And there is still
the chance, that it gets rejected. Also, it makes add-on
development much harder, as you have to send patches to core.<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you're referring to the category of "bug-fix" add-ons, there
would naturally not be an API for those. If it's a bug of general
interest, we should just fix that in core.</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:a1930879-27fb-263c-d690-ad3957fc761c@gmx.de">
<p> </p>
<p>I think this question must be answered now, as I do not want to
go through this in 5 years, when my addons again stop working,
because WebExt Experiments will be disabled.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To put this in perspective: converting your bootstrapped add-on
to an experiment should not be terribly hard or much work. The
work you'd put into maintaining that add-on over 5 years is by my
guess quite negligible. <br>
</p>
<p> -Magnus<br>
</p>
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