Talk:Manifest proposal
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Attributes
Some attributes that may apply to various settings:
- security
- usability (including convenience and consistency)
- management
- performance
- privacy
- backward or forward compatibility
For examples on using attributes in a description, see the Firefox article.
Modularity
Packages tend to be made up of components. As an extreme example, Windows is made up of a large number of components, including MDAC and ADO, utilities such as Wordpad and Calculator, bundled add-ons such as DirectX and Windows Media Player, and integrated add-ons such as Internet Explorer. For examples of Windows componentization, see XP Lite (http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html) and nLite (http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html).
Much like services, components have dependencies. For example, all components depend upon an OS, usually only specific versions of an OS. Some older versions may be known incompatible, while newer versions, if the components doesn't explicitly forbid them, are normally in the no-guarantee category. Some dependencies may come in groups, so that, for example, Windows 98 is acceptable only if the USB patch is installed, and Windows 2000 is ok as-is.
Some dependencies may be viewed with suspicion by some entities, so that, if a dependency is undesirable in most circumstances, either assurance must be provided that the dependency is relatively acceptable when used with the main package, or else the user must decide whether the benefits of the main package are worth any potential risks of the dependency. For instance, a calculator program that requires internet access for normal operation (as opposed to merely the operation of the home page link on the About screen) would be suspicious to most people.
