[webkit-dev] Client-based Geolocation

[Steve Block]

> On the one hand, getting rid of ifdefs is good. On the other hand, it seems to me there are some downsides to moving ports over to the client-based approach:
The motivation is much more than removing ifdefs. The original
Geolocation implementation was provided in WebCore/platform,
presumably because it was seen as a platform-specific abstraction to
hardware sensors. However, embedders require close control over the
behaviour of Geolocation because there are lots of UA policy decisions
to be made  (eg handling user permissions, when to use network
location vs GPS, when to suspend GPS to save power -
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34082 etc). Trying to do this
with the non-client based architecture caused layering violations, so
the client-based implementation was added -
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32499 - which gives embedders
complete control over Geolocation.

Since then, trying to maintain two versions of Geolocation has proved
cumbersome, so I think it makes sense to switch completely to the
client-based approach.

For reference, the top-level bug for client-based Geolocation is
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40373

Steve

-- 
Google UK Limited
Registered Office: Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TQ
Registered in England Number: 3977902