I think it would indeed be nice if users could inspect an addon and
see what capabilities that it asks for. But I think this is something
that would be relatively cryptic to most users. So I'd be fine with
leaving this for a bit later.

/ Jonas

On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 7:46 AM, Gareth Aye <[email protected]> wrote:
> Is there a reason (technical or philosophical) that we haven't put any
> effort into a permissions model for addons similar to what we're trying to
> do for webapps on fxos? I can imagine, personally, using closed-source
> addons which I am granting specific, granular capabilities, but I would be
> very hesitant to use closed-source addons that could really do anything with
> my phone.
>
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 2:38 PM, Jonas Sicking <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:34 AM, Gervase Markham <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > On 22/06/15 16:21, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>> >> ** Phone behavior **
>> >>
>> >> One of the primary pieces of functionality of a smartphone is the
>> >> phone. I.e. phone calls and SMS/MMS. While these are old and boring
>> >> technologies, they are still heavily used.
>> >>
>> >> I think it would be great to add hooks to enable addons to react to
>> >> incoming and outgoing phone calls and SMS/MMS.
>> >>
>> >> Ideally this would not be done by having the addons modify the Gaia
>> >> app frontends, but rather by having the addons hook in to the
>> >> phone/SMS/MMS backends. Both because it'll be easier for addons to
>> >> hook in at that level, and because we can keep backend hooks stable
>> >> even when we update Gaia/FirefoxOS to users.
>> >
>> > Although it would be cool if the app was then notified about any changes
>> > so it could update its UI. E.g. if a dial-through addon modifies my
>> > dialling of an international number to first dial a local number, wait,
>> > and then dial through the international number, I'd like to see what was
>> > happening on the display. Otherwise, I'll dial and see e.g.:
>> >
>> > 001 413 243 0181
>> >
>> > but hear the touchtone equivalents for:
>> >
>> > 020 1234 4567 <pause> 001 413 243 0181
>> >
>> > I'd like to say I think this API is critically important. Being able to
>> > mess with this stuff is still not very possible on other platforms, and
>> > yet it's a crucial feature for putting users in control. But it's also
>> > easily abusable by malware, which is another reason I think we need to
>> > have UI updates for what the phone is actually doing.
>>
>> I agree that we should enable addons to modify outgoing phone numbers
>> in such a way that the user sees the modified phone number.
>>
>> However given that addons will be able to modify the dailer UI, there
>> is no way we can ensure that the user sees what number is called. And
>> I think that's good since I want to enable addons that modify the user
>> experience.
>>
>> Addons are scary, they can and will do things that are unsafe. We need
>> to be fine with that. That's why we are separating addons from web
>> content.
>>
>> / Jonas
>> _______________________________________________
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>> [email protected]
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>
>
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