[maemo-developers] [RFC] Maemo package guidelines: mandatory categories

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Thursday 17 April 2008 12:33:26 Marius Vollmer wrote:
> I am sure you notice the conflict here: whatever list you come up with
> will be unsuitable for someone.  You want strict policy enforcement,
> based on community 'feelings'.  How can that work?

I am strongly against strict enforcement.  All that strict enforcement will 
achieve is (i) packages won't be put in extras, or (ii) packages will be put 
into an inappropriate category.  Both these cures are much worse than the 
current category problem.

There are two separate parts to the category problem.  The first problem, and 
the easiest to fix, is packages that appear which should not appear at all.  
For example, the various GPE library packages used to do that by having 
sections such as user/lib (I believe I have fixed all those now, at least for 
chinook -- let me know if you find any more).  These are just straight 
packaging bugs which need to be reported to the package maintainer.

The second problem is the real problem: categories are random, overlapp or are 
just variant words for the same thing and are not translated.  As someone 
suggested when this was last discussed, some months ago, I believe there 
should be a Wiki page which lists all the package names the community finds 
acceptable.  That list should be editable by anyone who has upload rights and 
who thinks they need a new category.  If the addition of the new category is 
disputed, it would be discussed here and the community would come to a 
consensus.

If a package in extras has a category that is not on this list it should be 
reported as a packaging bug to the maintainer of the package.  They should 
(eventually) either fix it or edit the Wiki page.

The tools to upload packages and to promote packages from extras-devel to 
extras should highlight if the category is not on the list (providing a link 
to the list, of course), but should still allow the user to go ahead if they 
insist.  Someone can even write a whole page on why category explosion is a 
bad thing if they like -- but don't prevent the upload.

As part of this, I would also want Nokia to commit to the community that new 
software releases would include translations for all the package names in the 
Wiki page (at some data prior to the release, of course).  That would be an 
added incentive for package maintainers to use the list.

I guess this proposal arises from my view that people would be willing to use 
standard categories if it was (a) made easy, and (b) reduced some pain.  But 
that there are many, many cases where a new category will be useful and we 
shouldn't be trying to fix the list.  I think we should be giving this a 
try -- if it is being abused we can then look at adding enforcement or 
override.

Graham