253828 - Use of an external SQL database to store Mozilla's user data

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Mark Stier]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.9.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.9.1

The idea is to have user data (bookmarks, passwords, www cache, browse history,
emails, addressbooks, ...) shared among different applications, maybe even
remotely and _concurrently_.

That would, of course, imply to set up a new standard that defines how to handle
user data stored in an SQL database.

Maybe we could use a stripped down version of PostgreSQL and let it run in
user-space. By default, such an SQL daemon should be provided by KDE, GNOME or
any other user environment. If not, Mozilla should start its own backend
(without the user even noticing). That would not put any pressure on that
'standard' to become an officially accepted standard.

Note: Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird are different applications. The use of an
SQL database would provide not only efficient storage, but also a common storage
for those users who want to use all three apps together.

Additionally, that would not only improve desktop integration, it would also
improve coding efficiency because I doubt anyone can do any better than the
folks at postgresql.org.

Additionally, I think it is a much better idea to integrate the user's desktop
apps with an SQL backend than to integrate the filesystem with a complete
database like MS does. It is simple. It is efficient. It does not complicate
things unnecessarily -- to the contrary, we would have a common data storage
format. And it would be as portable as PostgreSQL is -- mainly referring to the
MS Windows users.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Bruce Davidson]

See also bug 46078, bug 11050 and bug 197803.

Comment 2

[Bogdan Stroe]

Are you sugesting distributing a database system with Mozilla?
Or you just assume that everybody has such a system installed?

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
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you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
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If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
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Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.