[maemo-developers] Screenshots to user installable GUI packages in extras-testing [was Re: External Repository and HAM]

[From: Attila Csipa]

On Monday 08 March 2010 21:51:09 Graham Cobb wrote:
> This was the decision made, by the community, when the Extras-Testing
> process was set up.  It was for a very short list of requirements which
> were to provide safety and was, explicitly, not a QA process.  If some
> people wish to change that then the discussion needs to be taken to the
> -community list as that is the only way such a decision can be changed. 
> Until then, any requirements beyond the list originally agreed should not
> be being used and any votes which reference them are invalid and should be
> removed.
>
> There are very good reasons, not just "laziness", for NOT making the
> testing process a QA process.

Alas, the original events are lost in the gutter of my long term memory, but 
it is de facto a QA process now. In fact, all the wiki pages refer to it as a 
QA process. Not a perfect QA process, mind you, but still a QA process. Take a 
look at the following pages with a QA eye:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist/QA_Improvements

Note that many of even the blockers requirements are not about safety, but a 
general user experience (= QA). Where do we take it from here ? Backpedal on 
QA or do a rhetorical discussion about what constitutes 'user safety' ?

> The way to improve quality is not to have rules about it. 

Sorry ? I don't follow. We don't have the luxury of natural selection and wait 
for applications to actually cause damage to crystallize a score on a web page 
(which is BTW not even visible from the Application manager). I do believe 
that Extras as default was given the green light by Nokia in good part because 
the extras-testing concept proved as a working (albeit not perfect) measure to 
increase quality of software encountered by end users.

> Ultimately, poor quality apps will be badly rated by users and will drop to
> the bottom of the lists.  Developers will either work to improve the
> quality or will just give up.  Either way, users are unlikely to be
> inconvenienced. And at least we will know that when an occasional user does
> install one of these crappy apps they will not break their system.

The goal is not *only* to separate good apps from bad apps, but to maximize 
the number of good apps. It's a subtle, but *very* important difference. 
Testing and proper feedback sometimes CAN make a bad or mediocre app good ! 
It's most definitely not about penalizing developers for common mistakes (in 
fact, this is the very problem with the bugtracker issue as well, not the 
technical, but the social/community aspect of it). 

> Missing icons are blockers (along with decent descriptions) because they
> are part of the requirement that people who are using HAM can see what they
> are downloading before they do it.  Screenshots have nothing to do with
> that -- they are part of the selling/rating process on the website.  Apps
> without screenshots will just end up poorly rated, which is fine.

I would accept this as a valid argument IF you did not have the option of 
installing applications from downloads.maemo.org. But you do. If you go that 
route, you will never ever see the application icon - the screenshots have the 
same purpose there. Plus, for better or worse, Nokia is moving in this very 
direction of installing via browsers.

Regards,
Attila