[maemo-developers] Why should it be so hard and should I even bother with Extras for fremantle?

[From: Andrew Flegg]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 11:35, Graham Cobb <g+770 at cobb.uk.net> wrote:
> On Sunday 01 November 2009 10:22:00 Andrew Flegg wrote:
>>
>> However, if it is clear to users what to expect when they install
>> those apps; and they don't recklessly reduce the capability of the
>> system, I don't think they're that bad. So, perhaps, OpenSSH Server
>> should have a clearer warning that the root password it forces you to
>> choose should be strong, as it will allow anyone to log in to your
>> tablet if it is online and they know the password.
>
> I agree with Andrew.  These applications should be available to everyone.

Cool.

> 1) There will end up being a LOT of command line utilities.  Over time I would
> expect a lot of debian utilities to be ported.  This will clutter up the
> Application Manager with things of interest to a tiny number of people.
>
> The medium term solution, I think, is to create a new category: user/advanced
> or user/command-line.

I don't like this. If I'm looking for a port forwarder, I'm going to
look in user/network and, as an advanced user, I'm going to be happy
with a pretty GUI app or the command-line socat.

This is probably where we should start looking at introducing debtags?
So, for example, socat would be in user/network but have a tag,
'command-line'. We can then even add a setting to Application Manager
to show/hide command-line applications.

This set-up then is an obvious first step on the wider use of debtags,
which will garner us essential experience in how best to use them. (I
believe it's important that if the user selects one category they see
one set of apps. I believe it's important that one app appears in one
category: otherwise the user might not be clear that they're
successfully navigating from one category to the next if they see the
same apps cropping up over and over again. I also believe that tags
could make authors lazy in correctly categorising their applications)

I've also got a vested interest as a maintainer of the vim port, but
then there's also an application menu item for it which launches it
within osso-xterm. Yes, it's "command line" but it's also got a (very
basic) GUI. If there *was* a command-line tag switch, would I include
the tag?

> In the short term, I suggest we look at creating a user/utilities meta-package
> called something like "Command Line Tools" which would depend on the (non
> user/) tools themselves.

Hmm, seems messy. But perhaps that's a simple solution. I'm not sure
it'll work in practice unless the maintainer(s) of the "Command Line
Tools" package are quick to respond to change.

Depends on how many purely command-line utils (rather than full-blown
apps which can have an osso-xterm launched from the menu) we'll
*actually* see.

> P.S. Can we please start a new thread for discussion of the brainstorm
> process?

Done. Taken to -community.

Cheers,

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew at bleb.org  |  http://www.bleb.org/