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

[From: Thomas Viehmann]

Graham Cobb wrote:
> Another part of the pragmatic approach is that, at least initially, 
> submissions will have to be binary packages.  I believe that source should be 
> required to be submitted as well even though there is no way at the moment to 
> check that the supplied source really generates the supplied binaries.  That 
> means that one day an autobuilder can be added.
Also there are licenses (GPL, notably) that more or less require distribution of
the source alongside the binaries.

> 1) Someone creates a bug reporting system for everything in extras.  It is 
> well known and everyone is told about it.  Products would be created to 
> correspond to the names of packages in extras.

> The obvious downside of this is that it makes it easy to report bugs but no 
> guarantee that anyone is listening!  Particularly if the upstream project has 
> its own bug reporting system.

As you mentioned, combining this with 2) effectively makes it an opt-in system.

> 2) A new field is put in the debian control file to contain the URL of the bug 
> reporting system for that package.  The AppMgr could have an option/button to 
> visit the bug reporting URL for any package.

Maybe it would be wise to go with the solution already in use by Debian and
derivatives, described in (the documentation of reportbug)
  /usr/share/doc/reportbug/README.developers

Quoting:
 BTS selection
 =============

 Packages not distributed by Debian can take advantage of this utility too.
 They just need to add a "send-to" header to the control file
 /usr/share/bug/$package/control.

        Send-To: bugs.myproject.com

 `bug' will add `submit@' `quiet@' or `maintonly@' to form the address the
 bug report mail is send to.

 (Note: you probably should use dpkg's support for Origin and Bugs tags
  in lieu of this support.)

Kind regards

T.
-- 
Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/