Vincent Bernat wrote:
WebExtensions are backed by a standard draft:
https://browserext.github.io/browserext/. So, situation is expected to
improve in the future.
Mozilla have explicitly said that "Extensions created with the new
standard[...]won’t break in new Firefox releases." [0]
It has previously been permitted to update Firefox extensions to a new
upstream version in stable when a Firefox update requires this (e.g.
#826896). Are you proposing to prohibit this, or observing that it
doesn't always happen?
15 of 82 xul-ext-* packages have updated to a new upstream in stable at
least once in either wheezy, jessie or stretch; I don't know whether the
others didn't need to or or are/were broken.
Of the 7 I checked (the Debian-specific one plus ones I'd heard of, so
probably above average), 1 (pdf.js) is now part of the browser, and the
other 6 all support WebExtensions upstream. Of their Debian packages:
- 1 has migrated to webext-* (https-everywhere)
- 3 have unanswered open requests to do so (adblock-plus #889712,
noscript #882287, greasemonkey #895315)
- 2 don't mention it in the BTS (ublock-origin, debianbuttons)
This 1 is the only webext-* package that replaces a xul-ext-*; the other
4 such packages appear to be newly packaged extensions.
[0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-add-technology-modernizing
