Due to Studio's implementation as cloned virtual machines, we cannot install a JIRA plugin for just one customer - we need to install it in the base virtual machine. This forces us to take a very conservative approach to JIRA plugins, and only install things we're willing to test and fix should they break.

Yet there are plenty of useful JIRA plugins that customers want installed, where the customer is willing to assume risk of future breakage. It would be nice if, like Confluence, we could accommodate these people and allow the installation of plugins for just some customers.

This can be achieved by installing the plugin in the base virtual machine, but having the plugin module disabled by default. For this to work, we need a change in JIRA. Either:

• when the user clicks the "Enable module" link, display a big warning page stating that this plugin is unsupported and may break in future. We should link to a Confluence page where we can provide our own assessment of the risk to help people decide.
• prevent end users from accessing the Plugins page, so that enabling a plugin requires Atlassian staff intervention, providing us an opportunity to impress upon people the risks (and perhaps suggest a better alternative).

The intention is to only make third-party functionality available to customers who are well aware of the risks and have explicitly accepted them.