[maemo-developers] External Repository and HAM

[From: Benoît HERVIER]

By this thread i didn't want to launch a debate on why i'm creating my
own repository, but as it s on the table now :

- There is change in rules that happen frequently which seems to
depends on phase of the moon.

- There is latency in the display things in the maemo.org/packages/
interface which result of thumb down. Example : Last time i change the
bugtracker link this one was ok in the package but it tooks 3 hours
for this one to be displayed correctly in the web interface -> Result
: thumb down and comment saying that the bug tracker link is wrong ...
and of course other people vote thumb down without verifying nor the
link in the interface nor the link in the control file of the package.

- Sometimes package is never displayed to the package web interface
.... so cannot promote it.

- Sometimes promote package result is an php error, which mean that
the package will be not promoted and cannot be anymore without
publishing an other version and try again.

- Sometimes icon display on the newest package is taken from an older one.

- Sometimes changelog displayed on the armel version is taken from the
i386 package (occur only when the armel package version of an app is
newer than the i386 one)

- I'm not agree with some QA rules, like the fact that you should
point as bug tracker the enter_new.php page so you do not let user
made a search before or display the current know bug, so it ll result
in duplicate bugs.

- It s look like some users are here just to put thumb down just to
gain some karma.

Also about bugzilla :

- Creating a nice user interface to help user to automatically put
bugs directly on the tracker from their nit is not possible ... as
b.m.o use bugzilla and i cannot modify it to accept creation of new
bug from elsewhere than the ui.

- Submitting bugs require a lot of patience actually, as i take
several minutes to validate it (servers too slow ?) .

- Asking a new product or version in b.m.o require delay, as it s  not
something automated, but require you to send an email.

And the most important things which guide my decision, is that
currently, many thumb down make me angry as there was wrong vote, and
the fact that i m passing more time to package than to develop didn't
help.

As all of my apps depends on python, it ll not create a "package
dependancy hell."

"I am not sure if you were around in the early days", i was, but i
found that actually it s worse. Take a look for example on
maemofrance.fr they say to all their readers that if they want
interesting apps they should add extras-devel in ham... but as you can
see there is many things that can break device in extras-devel
actually.

"the developers have to understand that the testers are not slaves"
I didn't consider testers as slaves, but i consider today myself as
slave of the qa testing process.

"If you drop out of Extras then you are not only causing damage to the
community (due to the proliferation of repositories) but also severely
limiting your access to users."

The purpose isn't to causing damage to the community, but it s
actually too borring to trying to publish things to extras than
creating my own repository which is, i think, actually the better
solution i have ... The worst is stopping all publications of my
applications ... or just put the source code on my web site and
letting user installing it manually. At least i know 3 developpers
currently which consider to not upload to extras. And instead of that
creating there own repository, i didn't know there real reason ... i
just can imagine.

The other solution i see is creating my own Application Installer ...
there is already two, one for maemo repository and one for ovi ...
adding an other one will be really confuse.

But if there is someone which want to made the packages and publish it
to extras he is welcome.

Actually i'm just trying to found the best solution, but i think in a
near future i ll not publish anythings anymore to "extras".

2010/3/8 Matan Ziv-Av <matan at svgalib.org>:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010, Graham Cobb wrote:
>
>> On Monday 08 March 2010 13:09:52 Benoît HERVIER wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 2010/3/8 Thomas Perl <th.perl at gmail.com>:
>>>> "I don't know if Khertan's problem is technical or political"
>>>
>>> The both, as i'm tired of fighting against bug and wrong thumb down in
>>> QA Testing.
>>
>> Thomas, I was not aware that there was a problem with the autobuilder,
>> with no
>> workround, preventing some packages from building.  That is definitely a
>> severe problem and I will certainly push hard for a solution.  Thank you
>> for
>> your efforts and your patience.
>>
>> Benoît, I am very disappointed that you have decided to create a separate
>> repository.  I am not sure if you were around in the early days, with the
>> 770, but the proliferation of repositories made things unmanageable for
>> both
>> users and developers, even with the very small number of users we had
>> then.
>> The problem was not just finding packages: the worst problems were
>> incompatabilites that prevented two packages from even being installed on
>> the
>> same system! Re-creating that mess is no solution to even the most serious
>> problems we have today.
>
> Why not have another repository (called extras-authors), describe it as
> repository of programs that their authors think are good enough for users,
> and allow authors sole discretion on promoting their packages from
> extras-devel to extras-authors. As long as the name is neutral, and the
> wiki/forum/mail-list are not full of warnings in size 72 blinking red
> letters that this repository certainly without any doubt will destroy your
> device, I am sure most of those who have seperate repositories will prefer
> to use such repository. I know that I will.
> After all, this is how extras repository worked in chinook/diablo, and I
> think it worked very well.
>
>
> --
> Matan.
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>



-- 
Benoît HERVIER - http://khertan.net/