[webkit-dev] Adding ENABLE_NAVIGATOR_BUILDTYPE to WebCore

[Brendan Eich]

Adam Barth wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Ryosuke Niwa<rniwa at webkit.org>  wrote:
>> What is the rationale for adding this property on the navigator object
>> instead of the chrome object we also expose if your'e not expecting this
>> property to be ever standarized?
>
> Generally, we avoid implementing web visible features via the "chrome"
> object because that makes them Chrome-proprietary.  In this case, it
> seems entirely reasonable for other browsers (e.g., Firefox) to want
> to implement this feature.  By putting it on navigator, we invite them
> to implement it as well.

No, that's not how you invite someone to do something, in conventional 
human-to-human interactions :-|. It's a bit aggro -- if it makes a 
de-facto standard, others will follow whether they like it or not. If it 
has undesirable unintended consequences, too bad. As Dean pointed out, 
it also contradicts the pitch in Annie's first message.

As Annie noted, we don't feel the need since our UA string has some [ab] 
cruft in it at the end, and a number after the letter that's important.

But UA groveling sucks. Could we instead discuss navigator.buildType in 
some appropriate W3C or WHATWG list?

/be