Re: MIME type parameters

On 31/01/14 08:06 AM, Benjamin Smedberg wrote:
> On 1/30/2014 3:31 PM, Jack Bates wrote:
>> This change only affects cases where Firefox currently complains to
>> the user that "A plugin is needed to display this content" despite a
>> plugin being installed, in which cases the current behavior already
>> seems pretty destructive.
 >
> We are *very* risk-averse in this context.
>
> When a website requests something like
> application/x-java-applet;version=1.9 and you currently have Java 1.7
> installed, we don't ask the plugin to handle that type. This is
> intentional, and changing it may lead to unwanted website changes. And
> we really don't know whether or how other plugins use type parameters.
> Making changes of unknown risk to a legacy technology isn't worthwhile.
>
> So I can confidently state that we're not going to make the change you
> are proposing.

I understand. Thank you for a clear and definitive answer. Just to 
confirm: We are not going to make this change regardless of whether the 
proposed behavior:

    o  Fixes an inconsistency between the documented Java plugin 
behavior (by Sun/Oracle) and the plugin behavior with Firefox
    o  Is the behavior desired by the IcedTea-Web plugin authors
    o  Is already widely deployed by Internet Explorer and Chrome 
(therefore other plugins are unlikely to depend on the current Firefox 
behavior, Firefox may be the only browser to naively/literally match 
MIME type parameters)
    o  In other browsers MIME type parameters are handled by the Java 
plugin's internal version selection mechanism, just like
<embed java_version="1.9" type="application/x-java-applet">. In Firefox
<embed java_version="1.9" type="application/x-java-applet"> is handled 
by the internal version selection mechanism but
application/x-java-applet;version=1.9 is handled differently.
(<embed java_version="1.9" type="application/x-java-applet"> is the 
recommended version selection mechanism by Sun/Oracle.)
    o  The change only affects cases where Firefox currently complains 
to the user that "A plugin is needed to display this content" despite a 
plugin being installed (unlikely to be an unwanted website change).

We are not going to make this change because the risk is not worthwhile.