Plug-Ins -- Static vs Dynamic Guidelines

Question

Are the general pros and cons of static vs dynamic plug-ins currently documented? e.g. in any of the specifications? Or the current OSMF documentation?
If not, what are cases where it is recommended to use one over the other?
Thanks,
g

Answer 1

As a 3rd party vendor, I'm inclined to offer only dynamic plugins due to the fact that we're often rolling in new functionality and/or fixing issues and do not want to deal with each publisher having diff't versions or having to distribute new static plugins to each publisher as we make one of these sort of changes.
While I can appreciate the benefits of the elimination of run-time loading that comes with dynamic plugins, the benefits of dynamic plugins from 3rd party vendors outweigh the "cons"
In response to the mention about the publisher not wanting to "risk" breaking the player, I suppose that is a concern if the plugin being used is absolutely necessary for the overall functionality of the publisher's player, but I'd hope that the OSMF plugin framework is handling any fatal errors from a plugin such that they do not kill the player
-jason
VP Product & Technical Operations
ScanScout, Inc