[maemo-developers] Software categories (was do we need garage sandbox repos?)

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

ext Neil MacLeod wrote:
> Ferenc Szekely wrote:
>> On 8/9/07, Vlad Vasiliev <vlad at gas.by> wrote:
>> Neil raised a very important point in his mail: categories and control
>> of the repository. We could experiment with the categories in this
>> "extras-testing" repository. First we would need a proposal of
>> categories. The best would be to write this on a wiki page. Neil,
>> would you mind coming up with a draft?

Could you first define what you mean by "category"?

I have a bug in Bugzilla about the terminology, and it's not very clear:
  https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1524

This is the relevant part in Debian Policy:
  http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-subsections

The Maemo sections should at least try to mostly match Debian as we use
Debian as upstream.  Otherwise there will be useless patching of
packages when they are built/ported for Maemo.


>>From this initial list that I see on my N800 today:
> 
> Accessories     <---- Too general? Includes evince, would Office be a better choice?
> Applications    <---- Again, too general?
> cli             <---- All lowercase, and pretty meaningless
> Communication   <---- Only contains VNC, and gets it about right
> connectivity    <---- Again all lowercase, contains mnotify... hmmm Communication??
> Daemon          <---- Only dropbear, maybe Communication?
> Daemons         <---- Can never have enough Daemons
> extras          <---- Lowercase again, contains microb-refui whatever that is...
> Games
> graphics        <---- Contains an image viewer (mirage) - "Image Viewers" as a category?
> home-applet     <---- So good it needed it's own home-applet category
> instantmessaging <--- Bless you, Pidgin but what's wrong with Communication?
> Locales         <---- Is this really necessary? Again, it's Pidgin
> misc            <---- Insightful (not)
> Multimedia
> Office
> Other           <---- Mostly gaming related (fceu, visualboyadvance, xmame etc.)!
> Programming     <---- Python, could have gone in Support maybe?
> Protocols       <---- More Pidgin!
> religion        <---- rrrrrrrr!
> sound           <---- kmplayer, what's wrong with the Multimedia category?!
> Support         <---- Would seem like a good category for locales, runtimes and other stuff
> Themes
> Tools           <---\
> Utilities       <---- Tools/Utilities/utils... one category to rule them all?
> utils           <---/
> web             <---- privoxy... how about Daemon, Communication or connectivity?
> Web             <---- wordpress... Communication or Applications perhaps
>
> I've produced the following subset of broad categories for consideration:
> 
> Communications
> Games
> Graphics
> Multimedia
> Office (or perhaps Business Tools?)
> Programming
> Support
> Themes
> Utilities (or perhaps Tools?)

This is what the Maemo documentation has to say (see "Sections" part"):
http://maemo.org/development/documentation/how-tos/3-x/howto_making_an_application_package_bora.html

It defines the software sections, but unfortunately it doesn't currently
list what is supposed to go to each section.  This would be needed.


> Something like FBReader should probably go in the Office category
> (as it relates to document viewing though not necessarily Word/Excel
> format), which suggests Office may not be a good title...
> maybe a Document Viewer category (distinct from document creation tools
> which should be in "Office").
> 
> Applications such as xterm would be categorised as Utilities. Dropbear
> and ssh could be categorised as Utilities *OR* Communications - should
> all command line tools be placed in a single category for that purpose
> or treated the same as GUI packages? Perhaps a "Command Line" category
> would be appropriate.
> 
> Pidgin would be categorised as Communications, however Pidgin protocols
> might be categorised as Support, as would any locales (eg. Skype). However
> in order to simplify installation for the user there may be an argument
> to keep all packages associated with the main application in the same
> category, such that all Pidgin sound and protocol packages are categorised
> as "Communications" too.
> 
> Any thoughts?

I guess this also relates to menu policy, i.e. where the applications
should be in the menu.  Debian is currently in process of changing
it:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2007/07/msg00000.html
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=361418

and I think Debian has already accepted the change, but he actual
menu policy document is not yet updated, it's still the obsolete
one:
http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/ch2.html#s2.1


The Debian developers on the list might comment on this also.


	- Eero