On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 04:06:35PM +0100, Mĺrten Svantesson wrote:
> May I propose a third option: 
> Make mozilla search for a Kerberos GSS-API implementation on a
> computer when it get it's first Negotiate request. If a suitable
> library is found it's then loaded with dlopen. There would be two
> bonuses with this approach: Load time of Mozilla is reduced since
> unnecessary loading of libraries is reduced. But the biggest advantage
> is that if you have Heimdal or MIT Kerberos installed you don't have
> to do any special preparation to make use of them. You can even
> install Kerberos after Mozilla.

In the long-term I most like the use of plugin. If a user wishes to use
Kerberos then (s)he installs the plugin otherwise only Basic authentication
is available. I don't much like the approach with dlopen() since I'm affraid
of problems with loading and mixing various versions of GSSAPI, various
GSSAPI implementations etc. I think that such an automatic detection and
hidden dependency might cause hard detectable errors. Moreover I don't like
such smart applications trying to forecast user's wishes :-).  Besides I'm
not sure about portability of the dlopen() and dlsym() calls to all platforms
where mozilla is supposed to run (especially Windows and Mac), but I'm not an
expert.

--
Dan

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