Bug 220154 – [GTK][Stable] WebKitPluginProcess is built but not installed

• Component: WebKitGTK
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Alberto Garcia]

This affects all releases since 2.29.1 up to (and including) 2.30.4.

The origin of the problem seems to be r259560, which was the fix for bug 210033

Jim Mason reported the problem in the comments of that bug, but it seems that no one noticed.

[Michael Catanzaro]

The plan was to remove WebKitPluginProcess for 2.32. I guess we succeeded by accident....

[Jim Mason]

Created attachment 416802 [details]
Patch

[Jim Mason]

For reference, I have attached the patch I use to restore installation.

[Alberto Garcia]

(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #1)
> The plan was to remove WebKitPluginProcess for 2.32. I guess we succeeded by
> accident....

A Debian user wrote this:

"I am sad to hear that the plugin support will be removed.

The plugin is our company's in house program to provide a way to 
communicate between C/C++ and JavaScript, makes it possible for the 
connected primitive hardware to play some roles in the evolving Internet 
world.

We don't use the full features of NPAPI, but just the calling/passing 
functions and information between the browser and the underneath lower 
level system/hardware resources.

If removing of the plugin is inevitable, we will need to find an 
alternative of WebKit to fulfill our goal."

[Alberto Garcia]

(In reply to Jim Mason from comment #3)
> For reference, I have attached the patch I use to restore installation.

Thanks, I confirm that the patch works fine.

[Fujii Hironori]

Comment on attachment 416802 [details]
Patch

r265753 (Bug 215503) removed NPAPI plugin support for GTK and WPE ports.

[Alberto Garcia]

(In reply to Fujii Hironori from comment #6)
> Comment on attachment 416802 [details]
> Patch
> 
> r265753 (Bug 215503) removed NPAPI plugin support for GTK and WPE ports.

This patch is for the 2.30 branch which should still support those plugins as far as I'm aware.

[Adrian Perez]

(In reply to Alberto Garcia from comment #7)
> (In reply to Fujii Hironori from comment #6)
> > Comment on attachment 416802 [details]
> > Patch
> > 
> > r265753 (Bug 215503) removed NPAPI plugin support for GTK and WPE ports.
> 
> This patch is for the 2.30 branch which should still support those plugins
> as far as I'm aware.

Yes, the 2.30 branch still supports NPAPI plug-ins, I think we should
apply this fix in the branch (but of course not in ”trunk”). Carlos?

[Michael Catanzaro]

My $0.02: we are now four months into the six-month lifetime of 2.30. The plugin support is gone in 2.32 regardless. Reviving it for two more months after it's already been gone for four months -- albeit by accident - doesn't seem very useful.

[Alberto Garcia]

(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #9)
> My $0.02: we are now four months into the six-month lifetime of 2.30. The
> plugin support is gone in 2.32 regardless. Reviving it for two more months
> after it's already been gone for four months -- albeit by accident - doesn't
> seem very useful.

It seems that there are a few people who still use their own plugins, like the person that I quoted earlier in this thread.

Although those users will have to switch to a different solution at some point if they want to keep using a recent version of WebKit, it takes zero effort for us to fix this bug now and give them a few more months.

[Carlos Garcia Campos]

Committed r272131: <https://trac.webkit.org/changeset/272131>