Definition of required_features is wrong

[w3c]

Definition of required_features is wrong

[marcoscaceres]

I really think we should drop this thing altogether. It's not really helpful when apps are just installed from a website... and don't mean anything to most users.

[marcoscaceres]

It also encourages bad development practices and provides a legitimate excuse to exclude supporting certain users on the Web.

[jmajnert]

I agree. In case of apps installed from a website required_features makes little sense. It will however be helpful in cases where an app is discovered by its manifest first (app stores).

What about permissions then? It seems to have the same problem.

[mounirlamouri]

I'm afraid that if we don't have such a system, people will come up with worse ideas... I think we should keep this in the spec and mark it AT RISK so it is clear that the manifest can fulfil this requirement if people really want to.

[marcoscaceres]

@jmajnert permissions also sucks, yes: as it requires some signing authority to grant access to particular APIs (that's pretty anti-web, IMO). Permissions will hopefully die and become a packaged apps only thing.

@mounirlamouri wouldn't it be better to rip it out and then add it back if we need to? That is, we can discuss the problem on the list first. I'm worried that by even having it in the spec we are encouraging its use or granting it more value than it actually has.

[mounirlamouri]

You make a point. I'm worried that people might try to find there own workaround like we saw in dev-webapps at Mozilla. Though, that might be a quite narrower problem.

[marcoscaceres]

ok, so I'll remove this form the spec and file a separate bug to remind use to kick off discussion on the mailing list.

[marcoscaceres]

Ok, added #47

[jmajnert]

I fully agree.
IIRC we moved the manifest work to WebApps to get a solution for the Web. We were later supposed to define our own extensions, if we deemed them necessary. So I guess both permissions and required_features could be added later by some extension mechanism by SysAppsWG for use with packaged apps?