1220097 - Add support for experiments

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Developer Pages, defect)

Description

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Experiments are extensions with some special permissions within Firefox. They will only be created and distributed by Mozilla, and they need to be signed like regular extensions (not with the special signature we use for the Hotfix add-on). They have type 128 in install.rdf.

Experiments will be submitted to AMO just like extensions, but the validation and review behavior will be different:

* If an add-on owner is either the Mozilla account (https://addons.mozilla.org/user/mozilla/) or an AMO admin (group 1), auto approve and sign the file.
* Otherwise reject automatically.

Experiments should only be submitted as unlisted add-ons for preliminary approval, but I don't think we need to make any special restrictions for this. We can treat them like regular extensions for everything other than how they are approved.

Comment 1

[Andy McKay]

I think we also need this for ideatown and other groups at Mozilla and we should set up a general "if a user is in an approved group, auto-approve". We can come up with the criterion of how people get into that group, but it seems silly to prevent module owners on Firefox from having add-ons auto approved. These are people we trust with Firefox already.

If that sounds cool, I think we can split this bug up into experiments and that auto-approval plan.

Comment 2

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

I'd rather keep this as limited as possible. Even if I'm an admin, I wouldn't want my submissions to be auto-approved. Experiments and ideatown are exceptions because they are essentially pieces of Firefox that are shipped separately from the trains, and I expect them to be released in a constant state of urgency. I'd like that all other add-ons are handled like we do now, where people can poke us if they have an urgent release.

Comment 3

[Mathieu Agopian [:magopian]]

Will we have experiments with the new WebExtension manifest? If so, how will it declare that it's an experiment?

Comment 4

[Mathieu Agopian [:magopian]]

We're sure those experiments should behave juste like extensions for everything amo related (but the fact that they're auto-approved), right? So we don't need a new addon type (on top of the existing extension, theme, dictionary, langpack...)?

Comment 5

[Andy McKay]

(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #2)
> I'd rather keep this as limited as possible. Even if I'm an admin, I
> wouldn't want my submissions to be auto-approved. Experiments and ideatown
> are exceptions because they are essentially pieces of Firefox that are
> shipped separately from the trains, and I expect them to be released in a
> constant state of urgency. I'd like that all other add-ons are handled like
> we do now, where people can poke us if they have an urgent release.

If we should do ideatown in this way as well, as per your comment, it makes sense to do it in the same way for both ideatown and experiments. So rather than writing something specific for experiments, all I'm suggesting is add in an "auto-approve" permission into AMO, if that exists, we'd auto approve the add-on. The list of people who have that permission is controlled by the reviewers.

Comment 6

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

(In reply to Mathieu Agopian [:magopian] from comment #4)
> We're sure those experiments should behave juste like extensions for
> everything amo related (but the fact that they're auto-approved), right? So
> we don't need a new addon type (on top of the existing extension, theme,
> dictionary, langpack...)?

Yes, that's why I'm suggesting we treat them exactly like extensions for everything else, since adding a whole new type for them seems unnecessary.

(In reply to Andy McKay [:andym] from comment #5)
> If we should do ideatown in this way as well, as per your comment, it makes
> sense to do it in the same way for both ideatown and experiments. So rather
> than writing something specific for experiments, all I'm suggesting is add
> in an "auto-approve" permission into AMO, if that exists, we'd auto approve
> the add-on. The list of people who have that permission is controlled by the
> reviewers.

Agreed. I misread your comment and thought it was about giving developers auto-approve permission for all add-ons. As long as we limit this to experiments and ideatown, instead of for all add-on types, I'm okay with it.

Comment 7

[Andy McKay]

> Agreed. I misread your comment and thought it was about giving developers
> auto-approve permission for all add-ons. As long as we limit this to
> experiments and ideatown, instead of for all add-on types, I'm okay with it.

I would eventually like it for all add-ons, but I'm fine with experiments and ideatown for now.