[maemo-developers] Repositories mess: conclusions and actions

[From: Tim Teulings]

Hello!

> I'd like to share a simple 5-step plan :)  It seems that the discussion
> again somehow stopped.  The first steps of the plan seem to be quite
> practical, so hopefully we can start implementing something.  And I'd
> strongly suggest we proceed with step 5 only after having implemented
> steps 1-4 :)

> Step 1: Create the repository itself
> Step 2: Create "promotion" interface
> Step 3: Add building facility
> Step 4: Making "promotion" interface a bit more sophisticated
> Step 5: Make it better? :)

Wait a minute!

Please rethink why we initially wanted a different behavior for the 
extras repository. By initiating Step 1 and 2 immediately will we have 
solved any of the problems we initially detected? Is there any advantage 
  to the current extras repository and will give it some momentum to 
"the plan"?

I'm not against acting with initial steps instead of discussing things 
to the very end, but I think this suggestion is a too quick one. The 
solution points to problems which were already be detected and not 
clearly solved (especially the discussion about "who is the group" and 
"how will they decide").

It also is easy to find people to "decide", but we definitely need 
people who are willing to "improve the infrastructure" and do the hard 
work. If we do not get them now, your idea might die a step 3, too :-/

I think there was some agreement on staging repositories similar to 
debian together with some autobuilder mechanism. I think this is a basis 
that would be better for start. Isn't there a chance to get such stuff 
running in short time? We do have a few weeks time to set such stuff up. 
We do not need a solution tomorrow. OR is there a down striped solution 
(without staging) that would still give us some benefit?

What for example if we use

http://mud-builder.garage.maemo.org/index.php

instead? The author has planed to use it for rebuilding upstream 
packages but I think using it would give use more benefit than just 
switch to totally manually mode (which we already have). It has not much 
but at least more infrastructure. Can the author of mud please give his 
opinion on my silly idea :-)?

Or isn't there somebody who is able to set up real debian autobuilding?

I think that as soon we have autobuilding, evaluating rating and bug 
systems for staging should be possible. The advantage is, that the 
information is already there. We have the rating under downloads and we 
could use the garage bug tracking for each application (which would mean 
that each application must have at least a garage project page).

Please: Any volunteers (Quim can you spend some karma for this ;-)?)?

And please don't misunderstand we. I'm not saying "don't do this!", it 
just a "good idea, but couldn't we do better with similar efforts?".

And if we don't get some autobuilding or rating stuff set up now I'm 
definitely in favor of your solution.

Another question: Sooner or later we need some information and/or active 
support from the infrastructure.

For example it might be helpful to get some CSV reports (or similar) 
from downloads or statistics from the bug tracking system 
(bugs.maemo.org or garage). What can we expect? Do you have a "one 
sentence formula" about the grade of help Nokia can give in a given time 
frame?

-- 
Gruß...
        Tim