Re: RfC: moving Web Storage to WG Note; deadline June 29

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
> On 6/21/11 2:00 AM, Marcos Caceres wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Browser extensions are in every browser, so in a sense are part of the
>>>> web platform.
>>>
>>> I strongly object to both this claim and the idea that browser extension
>>> concerns should affect web-exposed APIs in general....
>>
>> your claims seem pretty groundless given the fact the Storage is
>> implemented and used in exactly the same way on the web, in
>> extensions, and in widgets. I really don't know what you possibly
>> could be objecting to?
>
> I'm objecting to the claim that browser extensions are part of the web
> platform and hence should inform the design of web APIs.  They are not and
> they should not, except in cases where there are no web considerations
> informing the API.

Seems your idea of "the web platform" is very idiosyncratic and
limited. It almost sounds like you are advocating "a modern web
browser with no extensions installed is the Web platform" or "it's not
in the HTML/WAHTWG spec, so it's not the Web platform". Yet, a
significant number of users of Web browsers use browser extensions:
Moz boasts "2,521,539,729 add-ons downloaded" - that's a lot of
download for something that is not part of the "Web platform" yet are
part of a Web browser.

Perhaps you don't use browser extensions, which might lead you to
believe that they are not an essential part of a web browsing
experience. For people like me (and seems like a pretty significant
part of the Firefox, Chrome, and Opera user base), they are a
fundamental part of the browsing experience and of the platform.

Again, what part of the Web Storage running on chrome:// or widget://
is an issue or violates the spec? A good API and specification is one
that has wider applications than that for what it was originally
intended.

>> If that is so, then prove it: how *localStorage* in Opera extensions
>> and Chrome extensions as used by background pages in any way different
>> from localStorage on a Web page? What are these "all sorts of ways"
>> that I so naively fail to miss?
>
> Typically, the security restrictions applied to browser extensions are
> completely different from the ones applied to websites, as one simple
> example....

I obviously didn't make myself clear: I'm talking about this
particular (Web Storage) API and how it interoperates in two browser
extension systems (Chrome and Opera). If you can't prove that it is
different and it does not fully conform to the Web Storage spec, then
you don't really have a case. If you can, and it's not simply an
implementation bug or similar... then we can come to terms and I will
agree with you.

-- 
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Tuesday, 21 June 2011 14:26:12 UTC