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

[From: tz]

I was hoping to spark a discussion, and I think it worked out better
than I was expecting for a rant.

My thoughts on extras:  (maybe instead of karma it should be called
extras credit?).

* I don't do games, so I would consider user/games as cluttered as
someone else might consider user/cli.  I don't have a solution except
a good hierarchy.  Clutter tends to be anything you don't want or
like.

* There are a lot of good bits of discussion, but my original point is
that only user/* is visible, so going outside requires a "red pill"
kind of hack (and my complaint is that it doesn't auto-restore).
Anything which expands user/* to XYZ/* needs to have XYZ in the
extras-tester promotion system and in the application manager.  Maybe
a universe/ or multiverse/ or advanced/ - just create something,
support it, and tell me where I can put something.

* Some apps will have hundreds of users, some only a handful, but all
require the same amount of Karma to approve.  Same with complex and
critical apps v.s. simple (see below).

* Requiring a reason for "thumbs down" would probably be a good idea.

* As pointed out Karma needs some persistence so trivial changes can
be checked and promoted quickly but new versions can be tested (and
possibly beta3 inherit from beta2).  Perhaps after getting a base
karma I can set how much karma I think it needs before it can be
promoted.  You might need to trust developers, but karma should be
different for a simple picture viewer v.s. a security application.

* Also I should be able to pull and replace a version or some
documentation when the build doesn't change any actual code.  There
seems to be no way to do this.

* The karma promoter could be a mini bug-reporting system.  It isn't
designed to be bugzilla, but for an app there could be a URL somewhere
to a talk discussion or bugzilla or email or something else for the
bigger things with patches, screenshots, but simple "the button is
half off the screen" can be put into a karma comment.