unbranded builds?

[»Q«]

The ability to temporarily load unsigned extensions in beta and
release¹ seems to render unnecessary the plan to put out unbranded
builds which will load unsigned extensions for the benefit of testing.
The FAQ² still says unbranded builds will be available; is that
really still the case?

1 https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/12/23/loading-temporary-add-ons/

2 https://wiki.mozilla.org/Addons/Extension_Signing#FAQ

[Kev Needham]

Yes.

When the preference is removed from the beta and release builds,
unbranded builds will be made available. That is now planned for Fx 46,
so branded builds can still be used.

kev

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[Botond Ballo]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:15 AM, »Q« <box...@gmx.net> wrote:
> The ability to temporarily load unsigned extensions in beta and
> release¹ seems to render unnecessary the plan to put out unbranded
> builds which will load unsigned extensions for the benefit of testing.

[sending to the list this time]

I don't think that ability makes unbranded builds unnecessary.

First, my understanding is that only *restartless* addons can be
loaded temporarily in this way. A lot of addons aren't restartless.

Second, addons can only be loaded *temporarily*, with the intended use
case being testing. In my mind, one of the purposes of unbranded
builds is to allow users to exercise their choice to run addons of
their choosing (on a permanent basis) without having their code
submitted to a central authority (Mozilla), and without having to put
up with the instability of the Nightly/Aurora branches.

Botond

[»Q«]

In
<news:mailman.1822.1453825958.19...@lists.mozilla.org>,

Thanks to both you and Kev Needham for the prompt replies which make
everything clear.

It was your second point, about end users, which prompted my question;
I'd (mis)understood that Mozilla's only motivation for providing the
unbranded builds would be for developer testing.