Re: No more binary components in extensions
On 06/05/2015 23:47, Doug Turner wrote: One thing I should point out is that binary components in B2G are NOT user installable. Instead, binaries components are used by companies building FirefoxOS devices. For example, Qualcomm has some special implementation for Geolocation and the radio interface layer (RIL). When a company wants to build a FirefoxOS device on Qualcomm hardware, Qualcomm hands them a bunch of binaries. These binaries obviously aren’t compiled into LIBXUL and thus we need XPCOM to continue looking for and loading binary components. Sony is unlocking their bootloaders to allow users to install other phone operating systems, including FirefoxOS. If the hardware is Qualcomm, I expect the users will want to install the binary blobs as well. Phil -- Philip Chee phi...@aleytys.pc.my, philip.c...@gmail.com http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief, oh Night, and so be good for us to pass. ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
One thing I should point out is that binary components in B2G are NOT user installable. Instead, binaries components are used by companies building FirefoxOS devices. For example, Qualcomm has some special implementation for Geolocation and the radio interface layer (RIL). When a company wants to build a FirefoxOS device on Qualcomm hardware, Qualcomm hands them a bunch of binaries. These binaries obviously aren’t compiled into LIBXUL and thus we need XPCOM to continue looking for and loading binary components. I hope this helps. On May 5, 2015, at 9:19 AM, Benjamin Smedberg benja...@smedbergs.us wrote: B2G has asked that binary component support be restored for distribution/bundles only, and that is being done in bug 1161212. ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
On 5/4/2015 6:53 PM, Philipp Kewisch wrote: So to be clear, this is just removed/disabled for Firefox? Other projects like Thunderbird are not affected? Followups to dev-extensions please! That is incorrect. This is currently disabled for all gecko applications. B2G has asked that binary component support be restored for distribution/bundles only, and that is being done in bug 1161212. As I said on the other list, I will review a patch which makes this configurable for Thunderbird, but I don't plan to write that patch myself. --BDS ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
No more binary components in extensions
(Followup questions or comments to mozilla.dev.extensions only, please.) With the landing of bug 1159737, I have removed support for binary XPCOM components in extensions. This is planned to ride the Firefox 40 train. This change is necessary because we no longer expose or intend to expose a binary-stable API to XPCOM. Most addons have already moved away from binary XPCOM components, but those that haven't are a source of instability around Firefox releases. Extension authors that need to use native binaries are encouraged to do so using the addon SDK system/child_process pipe mechanism: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Low-Level_APIs/system_child_process If this is not sufficient, JS-ctypes may be an alternative mechanism to use shared libraries, but this API is much more fragile and it's easy to write unsafe code. I will be updating MDN documentation and removing or archiving old documentation about binary XPCOM components in the next few weeks. --BDS ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
Benjamin Smedberg wrote: I will be updating MDN documentation and removing or archiving old documentation about binary XPCOM components in the next few weeks. Please ping me before outright deleting anything; I'd like to be sure we're able to continue to support people embedding Gecko or targeting projects other than Firefox. Thanks! -- Eric Shepherd Senior Technical Writer Mozilla https://www.mozilla.org/ Blog: http://www.bitstampede.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/sheppy ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
The patch in the bug removes it from the shared manifest parser, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey are out of luck unless they fork this. -Dan Veditz ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
The patch in the bug isn't going to work anyway because we still need binary components for b2g, so no panic needed on the TB/SM side. On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 5:22 PM, Daniel Veditz dved...@mozilla.com wrote: The patch in the bug removes it from the shared manifest parser, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey are out of luck unless they fork this. -Dan Veditz ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
On 05/05/2015 08:22, Daniel Veditz wrote: The patch in the bug removes it from the shared manifest parser, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey are out of luck unless they fork this. -Dan Veditz That sounds rather drastic. How does one fork only this feature without forking the whole of mozilla-central? Wouldn't a build time switch be more appropriate? Phil -- Philip Chee phi...@aleytys.pc.my, philip.c...@gmail.com http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief, oh Night, and so be good for us to pass. ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:06:21PM -0700, Bobby Holley wrote: The patch in the bug isn't going to work anyway because we still need binary components for b2g, so no panic needed on the TB/SM side. The patch in the bug doesn't disable *application* binary components, it disables *extensions* binary components. I doubt b2g uses the latter. Mike ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
Re: No more binary components in extensions
On 5/4/15 6:07 PM, Eric Shepherd wrote: Benjamin Smedberg wrote: I will be updating MDN documentation and removing or archiving old documentation about binary XPCOM components in the next few weeks. Please ping me before outright deleting anything; I'd like to be sure we're able to continue to support people embedding Gecko or targeting projects other than Firefox. Thanks! So to be clear, this is just removed/disabled for Firefox? Other projects like Thunderbird are not affected? Philipp ___ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
