[maemo-developers] Application manager category view proposals

[From: Marius Vollmer]

"ext Andrew Flegg" <andrew at bleb.org> writes:

> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Ryan Abel <rabelg5 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
> [forcing packages to comply with the "definitive" package list]
>>
>> The reason I like doing this Application Manager-side is that it forces
>> compliance even for stuff not going through the autobuilder or Extras. This
>> prevents both Nokia and 3rd party repositories from being evil and
>> corrupting the category view.
>
> Indeed, that's a very strong argument for it.

Okay, let's do it then! :)

> Having thought about it a bit more, I think there are 3 realistic scenarios:
>
>     1) Force the Application Manager to do it, based on a simple rule
>        like having an i18n label defined.

This is clever!  Too clever?  We could start with this: I could quite
easily add a setting that enables this behavior.  Should it be on or off
by default?

>     2) Force the Application Manager to do it, with an external package
>        defining the metadata.

This is easy to do.

>     3) Force the Application Manager to do it, sourcing the metadata
>        from *.maemo.org

This is a bit harder since we would need to tell apt-get about this new
metadata, and new infrastructure needs to be invented to maintain the
metadata in the repository itself.

Also, which of the many repositories should provide the list of
categories?  Only maemo Extras?  Each repo for its own packages?  A
union of all categories from all repositories?