455872 - Reconsider requiring login for sandbox install

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 441739

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

Description

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

I think I understand the principle behind requiring a login for access to sandboxed XPIs - I think it's about making sure people don't gratuitously install unfinished code that will hurt their experience of Firefox in general, and addons in particular.  I feel pretty confident that this discussion has happened before, but I can't find a bug to dup against, and at any rate the changes to the design over the last 6-12 months may support revisiting it anyhow.

My chief concerns with the login-required approach are twofold:

 - It reduces uptake for sandboxed addons (obviously, since that is sort of the point)
 - Logging in is not a good proxy for "informed consent" which is, I think, the intent.

Vlad and I were having a conversation where he was talking about the state of his Canvas3D addon, and how he would likely move it off of AMO so that he wouldn't have to go through the review process on each revision.  He said that he was fine with it being marked "experimental" and with users being cautioned, but that he gets angry responses from would-be users at the notion of logging in, which hurts his ability to reach users and iterate.  I'm certain that's not the outcome we want.

Is it naive of me to suggest something like we have for ignore version check (again, this is only seen by logged in users, but that's a separate discussion, really) where users have to consent to some warning before the install button is activated, but don't have to provide personal information like email address?  Something like:

[ ] I understand that this addon is experimental, and may cause %ProductName to crash or behave oddly

I'm trying to be considerate of the fact that this has likely been discussed to death, while at the same time trying to fix something that feels like it's not working - please be gentle in your responses.  :)

Comment 1

[Basil Hashem [:baz]]

Definitely want to address this as it's coming up more and more. Esp since there's the perception that AMO is harvesting email addresses needlessly. But marking as dup of bug 441739.

Comment 2

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Verified dup