[rfc][icedtea-web] reconsider offline and xoffline

[Jacob Wisor]

Greetings!

On 02/13/2015 09:46 AM, Jiri Vanek wrote:
> On 02/10/2015 04:14 PM, Jie Kang wrote:
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> Currently the offline environment of ITW is not perfect
>>>
>>> Applets in browser works even when network is off -its good.
>>>
>>> Also all jnlp apps works offline, unless offline-allowed is missing. Same is
>>> for -html switch, because
>>> pluginbridge by default do not specified it. If -Xoffline is specified, then
>>> this check is not done,
>>> and all -html applets an javaws apps without offline-allowed  works.
>>>
>>>
>>> I would like to remove all possible checks of it.
>>>
>>> Most direct approach is attached. But maybe better one to remove all usages
>>> of isOfflineAllowed may
>>> be better (but then the comment is lost)
>>>
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> What happens to applets that only want to run 'Online'? You say 'Most
>> applications are misusing it' but what about those applets that
>> include/exclude the parameter correctly?
>
> They will fail later with regular exception. So imho it is correct behavior.
>>
>> In your opinion, how does this change help? I feel like the original is still
>> okay.
>
> Nope. Currently you need to force Xoffline to achieve it. (except regular applets
> in browser)
>
> However, year with xoffline proved me to be right. Apps were nearly always
> forbidden to run offline without any reason, and were working fine.

This sounds like "Oh, some application developers are unable or unwilling to 
author correct JNLP files, so let's change the specification". I think 
IcedTea-Web should follow the semantics of the specification for the 
offline-allowed element. In fact, it should follow the specification on every 
aspect. Just because some applications can or could run flawlessly offline but 
for some reason shouldn't, does not mean we should silently deviate from the 
specification. There are good reasons for the semantics of the offline-allowed 
element. Well, the only thing that could use some critique here is the fact that
offline-allowed should have been made to be defined implicitly instead of 
explicitly in JNLP files. Or rather specify semantics for an online-denied 
element. But this is has to be defined by the specification, not the 
implementation. Otherwise we could just start assigning our arbitrary semantics 
to every arbitrary aspect of the specification. This would certainly be neither 
wise nor helpful to anybody in particular.

>> If anything, I think removing the usages would be better. You can still keep
>> the comment inside InformationDesc. Something like:
>
> I dont think. It is quite wides spread, and before 1.6 goes out, maybe we
> reconsider. So I would rather use return true, and kept usage s for a while.
>>
>>       public boolean isOfflineAllowed() {
>> +        //WARNING: Icedtea-Web ignores this parameter. Most applications do
>> not use this correctly.
>>           return null != getItem("offline-allowed");
>>       }

Regards

Jacob