Re: "installing" software

Declaring consensus on this. I'll create an editorial action, and ask Anil 
to fold this in. 





From:
Mary Ellen Zurko/Westford/IBM@Lotus
To:
public-wsc-wg@w3.org
Date:
10/30/2009 06:09 PM
Subject:
"installing" software
Sent by:
public-wsc-wg-request@w3.org



We discussed Adam's comments on "installing", below (and in his email) in 
the meeting:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wsc-wg/2009Oct/0024.html
________________________________________________________________________
>> > Web user agents MUST NOT expose programming interfaces which permit
>> installation of software without a user intervention.
>>
>> What does it mean to install software?
>
> Installing software means downloading it for later execution.

You've missed the point.  As desktop applications and web applications
converge, these concepts become meaningless.  What does it mean to
"download" or "execute" something?  Is AppCache covered by this
requirement?  Surely that's "downloading" the cached bits of the web
application for later "execution" (i.e., use of the web application).

What if a user agent keeps a list of the 10 most recently used web
applications and stores them in the start menu as if they were native
applications?  This would seem to violate this requirement yet seems
perfectly sensible.
________________________________________________________________________

We agreed in the meeting that we should clarify the text. What we're 
concerned with are installs outside of the browser, since the security 
model within is covered. 

Section 7.4.2 talks about installation. I propose we clarify by adding the 
following paragraph to the start of that section:

This section covers web user agent APIs that allow web content to download 
software for later execution outside of the web user agent context. 


ACTION-632 and ACTION-633