Re: joint work with WebApps WG on Manifest

On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Wonsuk Lee <wonsuk73@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi. Dave.
>
> 2013/4/26 Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>
>>
>> This to bring an issue [1] to the full SysApps WG mailing list.
>
>
> Thanks a lot for bring this issue to mailing list!
>
>> The SysApps and WebApps working groups both have an interest in
>> standardizing a JSON based manifest format for apps.
>>
>> The requirements for manifests for packaged and hosted apps overlap
>> significantly, and presumably app developers would like to minimise
>> differences in the manifest formats for packaged and hosted apps.
>>
>> This has been discussed at the recent SysApps Face to Face meeting [2],
>> and separately by WebApps [3].
>>
>> Here are some possibilities:
>>
>> a. one of the two groups takes full ownership of the
>>    manifest format for both packaged and hosted apps
>>
>> b. one group standardizes the manifest format and the
>>    other group standardizes extensions to that format
>>    as necessary for their own use cases
>>
>> c. there is a joint task force involving both groups
>>    that standardizes a single specification covering
>>    the use cases for both working groups
>
>
> When I had a discussion in web apps wg in yesterday, Mike(W3C) raised issue
> about administrative issue. So I have type "b" in mind. but I would like to
> get feedback from the group members

Yup. I like this approach the best. Having the WebApps WG standardize
the manifest format and have the discussions about it happen on the
main webapps mailing list has the advantage that we're more likely to
get input from a broad range of browser vendors, which should maximize
the chance of quick adoption by implementations.

Having broad adoption by browser vendors I think is the best way to
get broad adoption by websites. This lowers the barrier for websites
to also adopt the runtime spec if they already have a manifest. In
fact, in many cases simply submitting the URL of that manifest to a
store is all that an author would need to do. Stores could even
automatically find manifests through spidering.

Meanwhile the sysapps group can focus on adding the extensions that we
need in order to enable app developers that want to create more
powerful apps. So for example I would imagine that the "permissions"
property is something that I think we'd have to handle.

>> Whichever approach is adopted, both groups will need to liaise carefully.
>> If we go the Task Force route, we would have a new mailing list and an area
>> on the wiki. That is trivial to set up.
>>
>> At the SysApps face to face we resolved to propose to create a TF to the
>> WebApps F2F for the runtime work. However, following the recent discussion
>> in WebApps WG, it seems that WebApps WG is willing to take on full ownership
>> and to drive the spec to W3C Recommendation for both packaged and hosted
>> apps.
>>
>> Presumably, this includes covering any SysApps requirements in relation to
>> the security and runtime model.
>>
>
> I am not sure Web apps WG is willing to make manifest specs including
> packaged web app. I understood as Web Apps handle only for part related with
> hosted web app and SysApps WG do take care of parts of packaged web app.
> Jonas, Could you add more comment on this?

Agreed. I don't think that the webapps working group is interested in
taking on packaged or signed apps at this time.

/ Jonas

Received on Friday, 26 April 2013 23:41:30 UTC