[Fedora-packaging] Mozilla Extension Guidelines

[Thomas Spura]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 12:34:47 -0400
David Michael wrote:

Hi David,

> I am considering packaging a Mozilla extension, but I thought it best
> to try to clarify some things beforehand.  The only guidance (draft) I
> found[1] doesn't seem to be followed by existing packages, but I agree
> with it in principle.

the reason, why I (noscript maintainer) didn't follow the draft is,
that I didn't knew it.

> Is it acceptable to follow the draft guidelines, or should new
> packages attempt to conform to the existing packages' (not quite
> consistent) structure?

There is a problem in the draft. Some package needs to own the "common"
subdirectory, called _moz_ext_commondir. Until such a macro/directory
does not exist, I wouldn't give the advice to use the draft...

I just pushed a change to mozilla-noscript which changes all the macros
so the draft is followed (with defining all the needed macros in the
package). Now the extension is installed into the _firefox_extdir and
the seahorse extension links to that to avoid the problem with the
common directory. That can be changed, when the draft is approved...

> Is it appropriate to support any/all applications listed in the
> install.rdf, even if they are not available in Fedora?  (I don't see a
> downside to this if the draft guidelines are followed, and it would
> allow locally managed applications to take advantage of extensions
> installed from RPMs.)

I would do so, if the applications are free and have a chance of beeing
in fedora in the future (some extra symlinks don't need any relevant
space).

Hope that helps,
	Tom