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Comment by tlianza | Hacker News Reader

I haven't seen any commentary on the fact that Firefox's plugin system is completely based on browser version number when specifying compatibility in install.rdf.

Do they expect all developers to release a new version of their extensions every 6 weeks, or do they expect us to effectively say "my extension is compatible with every future version of firefox" which is impossible to guarantee?

There are very good reasons for the "major" version number to exist. Why would they ditch that? Just bump a minor number instead... I see no benefit to this approach.

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Hello! I work for Mozilla. To address the problems with our extension versioning system, we've begun running an automated suite of tests against addons that will automatically make them as compatible with the next version of Firefox. The system performed well for the 4 -> 5 update, and we expect to tune it better. Additionally, if developers use the new set of extension APIs as opposed to the older ones, compatibility is a much simpler affair.

Is it safe to assume that every release is going to require binary XPCOM components to be rebuilt?

Yes. We make no guarantees whatsoever on binary compatibility between versions.

Okay, thanks - has bundling an NPAPI plugin with an extension got a future? (js-ctypes can't do what I want so it seems like the next best thing.)

Curious what you want to do... Maybe extend js-ctypes so that it'll do what you want?

I use an API that you pass a callback into and get an fd in response. You then monitor the fd and invoke a process function when there's something to read which results in your callback being fired with results. I haven't checked js-ctypes for some time so I could be wrong about this type of thing not being possible with it.

I figure if I'm going to do a rewrite I might as well go down the NPAPI path (via http://www.firebreath.org/) as then I can pick up Chrome.

You're wrong. The Mozilla Evernote add-on is broken right now. The Chrome Evernote addon is working fine.

AMO auto-bumps versions for addons that pass through automated checks.

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