[maemo-developers] RFC: Proposal to solve multiple repository, poor QA situation

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

ext Graham Cobb wrote:
> One key to getting this successfully off the ground is that I think the focus 
> should be on helping people do whatever is needed to release their package -- 
> after all, we want to get away from multiple repositories for released 
> software, not put roadblocks in people's way.  While it would be nice to have 
> a Maemo policy manual

There should be a draft of this, hopefully within few weeks.
Most likely it will miss many of the things people would
like to be there and has many open issues/TODOs, but at least
it's a starting point for discussion.

I think it's best to model things after Debian.  I.e. policy
manual[1] is about repos & packaging, coding guidelines[2]
and developer reference[3] are separate things from that.

[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-scope.html#s1.1
[2] 
http://maemo.org/development/documentation/how-tos/4-x/maemo_coding_style_and_programming_guidelines.html
[3] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-scope.en.html

If somebody could summarize the things community would like
to be in the maemo (packaging) policy before this, that would
be nice.


> and a "mintian" tool to check it, we can't get there 
> from here -- there is just much too much work to do to get to that stage.

A good starting point is running Debian "lintian" tool for the package.
This can be done on the desktop.


> In particular, I am very much against the community trying to set guidelines 
> on coding quality (such as "no warnings").  Personally I also dislike 
> compiler warnings and try to eliminate them when I have a piece of code open 
> for bug-fixing but a lot of Maemo applications are just ports of other things 
> or are works-in-progress.  Reviewing code quality is just not a feasible goal 
> at this time.
> 
> I am even fairly ambivalent to application quality.  I certainly think the 
> volunteer should check that the supplied packages install.  They should check 
> some minimal things (like not adding new application categories!).  They 
> should probably even try to satisfy themselves that the application runs (can 
> be started) and doesn't appear to do any damage (crashing the UI, for 
> example).  But I don't think it is reasonable to ask them to check the 
> application "works".  That is what bug reporting systems are for.

"Quality Awareness" lists some things that could be tested:
http://maemo.org/development/documentation/how-tos/4-x/quality_awareness.html


	- Eero