[maemo-developers] Deleting Project PyGTKEditor from Garage

[From: Nils Faerber]

Sorry, cannot resist - but Benoit IMHO has a point here, see more below...

Benoît HERVIER schrieb:
> Why are you saying that i m trying to divide the Maemo Community ?
> So Maemo is as closed as Apple iThings  Store ?

For sure not and you know this is not true - this is mixing up things.

> We can t provide apps without the approbation of the community ?
> 
> Uploading things to extras is a pain ... rules changes ... stupid
> votes ... bug in the interfaces that noone take care... fixing a bug
> for a package in extras could takes several weeks due to the QA
> Testing process ...

This is a two sided sword...
This kind of QA is hurting you badly (let alone bugs in the interface,
lets first stick to the general rules applied here).

But the fundamental question is, how could we together, and this
includes you, the Maemo community as a whole, Nokia QA, etc., how could
we create a QA system that

 - on one hand makes it easier for developers to get their updated
versions into the feeds, while

 - on the other hand make as as sure as (practibly) possible that users
(which one day will mostly not be developers) do not brick their devices
or other awkward problems that could lead them to complain quite
cluelessly and loudly at Nokia or here on the mailinglists?

Either way it hurts.

So we have to find a way to reduce the pain for all of us - the
developers, as Benoit is, and users.

Maybe it could help to do a small survey about such processes for other
distributions and products?
For example it would be interesting to know how the (later) mentioned
Android does assure this? Well, on Android it is hard to create anything
that could brick it in the first place, but apart from this do they have
some QA?
And what about the desktop distros?
Maybe this could put this into perpective a little and, while it keeps
being a pain, lessens it a little.

And as last resort: Benoit, if you really want to have faster updates
for your users, creating your own repo is a valid choice! Maemo is open
enough, on contrast to others, to allow for that, even more, it is
designed for that!
So don't give up, please. Go ahead, do what you feel is most useful for
you and see if your users follow - because in the end those are the most
important parties for your decision - you and your users.

And as a platform if more and more individual repos pop up then the
platform has to rethink its strategy. Then something seems to be really
wrong.

So go ahead and make use of the freedom you have!

And besides in the early days of Maemo it was common practice that
projects had their own repos... Garage can be a nice service but you do
not have to use it.


I think, my final point, the point that heated up some minds here is
that you loudly demanded the deletion of packages. This is a
controversal point and quite uncommon - what is released is released and
stays released. While it can be understood why you wanted it for some
people it might have raised one or the other eye-brow ;)
Why not simply increase the version numbers and put them in your feed to
overide the "older" ones?


> I cannot say to user to set extras-devel repository ... there is too
> much package that can brick n900 device ... HAM ignore apps that are
> in other repository if they are already in extras !!! So what ?
> 
> I m a hobbist developers, i m doing it for free ... and today it s
> take more time to trying to make packages available in extras than
> creating new apps and implementing new feature !!! Why ... you should
> try to found user to test your apps, answer to wrong vote, wait bugs
> to be fixed in the web interface, and more !
> 
> So creating my own repository is the best compromise ... Today i ve
> already delete my garage account as x-fade is now sure that i ll not
> publish anything more on extras repository ... what you want ? if you
> are not happy with that do not use my repository ... BUT STOP WHINNING
> !

As said above noone is actually strongly complaining (at least not that
I read it). Some might question your choice - but hey, they can, so
what? It is your decision - full stop.

> But i got so many complain about creating my repository that now you
> win ... you know what ? Today i m writing code to create packaged
> python apps for android, and i ll probably stop all my maemo
> development ! I know that this n900 will made many damage to the
> community ... but i was optimist ... i was thinking more users, better
> for the plateforms ... failed
> 
> Yes there is discussions, talk, brainstorm ... and other discussions,
> emails on the mailing list but ZERO actions taken. This was my first
> experience in an true OSS community ... but probably the last.

In how far did those not-taken-actions had influence on your
development(s) (except for bugs in the extras interface :( ?

> FELICITATIONS you loose an other dev ! Your so closed mind IS DIVIDING
> the community !

In fact it is making it smaller, not dividing ;)
But I sincerely hope that you do not stay away completely.

I would stringly suggest that you *use* the freedom that open source and
Maemo give you - you can achieve your goal several ways.
You tried extras and it failed for you - fine!
Having your own repo is a valid choice, you have pretty good reasons to
do it, so do it and try it that way.


Cheers
  nils

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