[maemo-developers] Repositories mess: conclusions and actions

[From: Neil Jerram]

Quim Gil <quim.gil at nokia.com> writes:

> This is an invitation to resume all previous discussions about "the
> repository mess" and come up with conclusions and actions. Please read
> this through and have a say, specially if you are maintaining a
> repository with maemo packages out of maemo.org

This all sounds very positive to me.  The only thing I'd add is that
Nokia/Maemo should consider providing a auto-builder service for Maemo
packages, such that

- developers could upload source code packages

- the autobuilder would attempt to build them, for all supported
  platforms (gregale, bora and chinook)

- if everything built successfully, the auto-builder would
  automatically submit through to the extras-testing repository

- if there were problems, the auto-builder would email those back to
  the developer.

Technically this is separate from the repository issue, but
(i) I think it is needed, in addition to your repository proposals, in
order to dramatically improve the availability and quality of 3rd
party packages, and (ii) it would be a major incentive for developers
to use extras and extras-testing instead of starting up their own
repositories.

Please note that, if such an auto-builder existed, this does not mean
that developers should stop building the code themselves - because it
would be wrong to upload to the auto-builder before having some
confidence that the package will build.  It would be reasonable,
however, for a developer to have only the current SDK (e.g. chinook)
installed, to do their development using that, and to check that their
package builds in that SDK's rootstrap, and then to use the
auto-builder to handle building (and publishing packages) under the
other platform SDKs.

In some cases, of course, it will be impossible to make an application
work on the older platforms.  Such cases could be handled by allowing
a "Platforms: chinook" or "Platforms: chinook, bora" declaration
in the source package upload.

As regards implementation, note that the mud-builder project in garage
has already done some useful work here - but in any case I don't think
this auto-builder would be technically difficult; it's more a matter
of whether you agree that this service would be a good idea and could
invest the management resource to make it available.

Regards,
        Neil