[Pkg-mozext-maintainers] Disabling extensions by default ?

[Mike Hommey]

Hi,

I recently installed xul-ext-sync, and well, if you've ever used it, you
know how it throws at your face on the first run. And as I use a lot of
various profiles for iceweasel testing, it threw quite a lot at my face.
I then remembered there were other extensions doing similar things when
they are installed.

Some more time back in time, when I was trying to create an empty
and clean profile, I was struck by the fact that i needed to disable so
many extensions.

Anyways, these anectodic developer experiences got me into thinking a
bit more about globally installed extensions.

I can see two different main profiles of "users" of globally installed
extensions. The first one is the standard user, using the package
manager instead of the addons manager to get the addons she wants.
The second one is the system administrator providing service for a
number of users, and pre-installing many extensions.

While in the first case the users most certainly expects the extension
to be enabled when they install it, the second case is pretty much
different. Which brings two questions:
- Should the extensions be disabled by default ?
- Should there be a way to enable/disable extensions globally, though
  configuration files ?

What do you think?

Mike