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posted by
CoolHand
on Saturday August 22 2015, @05:47AM
from the who-is-this-company-named-mozilla dept.
from the who-is-this-company-named-mozilla dept.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody who's been paying attention the past few years, Mozilla has announced that it will be deprecating all current extensions and have all future extensions be compatible with Chrome and Opera via the new WebExtensions API.
- We are implementing a new extension API, called WebExtensions—largely compatible with the model used by Chrome and Opera—to make it easier to develop extensions across multiple browsers.
- A safer, faster, multi-process version of Firefox is coming soon with Electrolysis; we need developers to ensure their Firefox add-ons will be compatible with it.
- To ensure third-party extensions provide customization without sacrificing security, performance or exposing users to malware, we will require all extensions to be validated and signed by Mozilla starting in Firefox 41, which will be released on September 22nd 2015.
- We have decided on an approximate timeline for the deprecation of XPCOM- and XUL-based add-ons.
Maybe now we can get a sustainable fork going?
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Common Joe on Sunday August 23 2015, @04:36AM
May I make a couple of observations?
We're watching four pendulums swing together with different frequencies and some of them are lining up -- enough to create major waves in the computer community, possibly some of them very long lasting. The first is cross platform: it has a lot of advantages but isn't quite the utopia many people thought it would be. (Native app developers knew that, but the web developers are now experiencing this first hand.) The second is thin / thick client. (The web started off as thin client and somehow managed to become much thicker, but definitely not fully thick.) The third is removal of choice from the user. (Very varied programs: Google Maps, Windows 8 start menu, Slashdot) The fourth is removal of choice from the programmer.
This articles falls squarely into the last category but is definitively related to the other pendulums. And there are plenty more pendulums that I don't mention. (Graybeards, ever notice how the complexity of programming languages wax and wane too? Maybe the description of a popping of a bubble is more apt for this phenomenon.)
As a programmer with a figuratively graying beard, I find this fascinating (and at times horrifying) to watch. I don't know what this all means. I just find myself navigating the pendulum maze and trying not to get hit with these swinging monsters.
I think a bunch of web programmers are in the process of getting hit hard. I feel for my brothers and sisters. I once got hit (not even that hard) and never fully recovered.
What worries me most (and horrifies me most) is that the removal of choices by the powers that be. We, as programmers were told to remove choices from the user. It was for their own good. (As a user, it annoyed me. I could change the font in my title bars in Windows 95 but not in Windows 7 / 8.) And now, as programmers and admins, we're getting dosed with this same medicine pretty good too. As employees, we've been getting hosed for a while. This particular pendulum -- the one concerning choice -- is one of the most frightening of all.