[maemo-developers] Software categories

[From: Marius Vollmer]

"ext Guillem Jover" <guillem.jover at nokia.com> writes:

>> >   role::program && interface::x11 && \
>> >   (uitoolkit::hildon || uitoolkit::gtk || uitoolkit::sdl || uitoolkit::xlib)
>>
>> Right, that makes a lot of sense.  But still, it is a rather indirect
>> way of controlling visibility in the AM.
>
> And I think that's a feature. One just needs to come up with an
> adequate filter for your specific needs.

Hmm, I am not yet convinced that we can come up with a stable filter
rule that we can implement in the Application Manager.  We can leave
customizing the filter rule to the user, but we should have a really
good default rule.

What about inverting the logic: we make a rule for packages that
should be hidden?  Would that make it easier to get it right?

>> What about packages like language packs that enhance the system in
>> some subtle way?
>
> In this particular case you could also show packages having the
> culture::catalan tag (for example), if my system locale is ca_ES. And
> you could change that dynamically depending on the locale.

Yes, in this way we can get closer and closer to a really good filter
rule, but I would rather not bet on converging any time soon.

>> It is very important whether or not a package is shown in the AM
>> and I think we should let a package declare itself visible in a
>> very direct and dedicated way.
>
> I think this is a bad idea, it encodes our (Maemo and/or Nokia)
> narrow definition of end user into the packages (although the tag
> data can be just supplied externally, but still).

This is true.  However we do it, and however flexible the AM will get
in the future, we always need to have a set of packages that are
visible in the default configuration of the AM, and we somehow need to
communicate that set to the AM.

Encoding this default set in the packages themselves might not be the
best thing, agreed.  I would say that using tags are then just as bad
as using sections.

>> What about a "audience" tag?  The default filter rule could be
>>
>>     audience::enduser
>
> enduser defined in Maemo terms, or how do you come up with a general
> definition that can be universally used upstream?

Does the definition need to be general?  End user as appropriate for
the distribution that the package is in.  But yes, that wont work for
a distribution that has many different target audiences.

We could be more specific: audience::mobile-enduser, or
audience::internettablet-enduser, or audience::maemo-enduser.

This would again mean that people need to use the right tag
expressively to make their packages visisble in the AM.

> There's already an admin:: namespace, there's also use:: and other
> similar, if there's missing stuff, I'm sure upstream would be glad
> to listen, and maybe we should move this discussion there?

Yes, we can do that.

(In any case, the AM will support the existing "Section: user/foo"
method for a very long time and thus we always have a way out whatever
we do with tags and we can afford to implement experimental stuff.)