Why are there so many Mozilla plugins directories?

[Liam Proven]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:30 AM, Florian Diesch <diesch at spamfence.net> wrote:
> Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I seem to find, on 9.04 or 9.10, that there are separate directories for:
>>
>> /usr/lib/firefox/plugins
>> /usr/lib/firefox-[version]/plugins
>> /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
>> /usr/lib/xulrunner/plugins
>> /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins
>>
>> Some of these are links to other ones, some are empty.
>>
>> Most contain symlinks to various things in /etc/alternatives which
>> then link to actual plugins for media players, java, etc.
>>
>> Why so many? Wouldn't a single linked or union directory be easier, or
>> am I missing something important?
>
> This allows to have specific plugins for a given version of Firefox,
> plugins for any Mozilla or XULRunner based software, ...  Also some
> third-party software ma expect to be installed in some of this
> directories for historic reasons.
>
> The alternatives system is there to manage different packages providing
> the same functionality, see man update-alternatives

Good point, I guess. I am not sure why this would be necessary but I
guess it might be for someone.

Thanks!


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