[maemo-developers] Package promoting

[From: Thomas Perl]

2010/9/22 Andrew Flegg <andrew at bleb.org>:
> No matter the QA process, some developers will always feel that their
> code is perfect and doesn't need to be tested - but developers make
> rubbish testers of their own code. The challenge is to get the balance
> right, and I'm fairly convinced that we're very close to the right
> balance now.

Yes. One good thing that's also tested (or at least commented one) is
that things like the application icon, application description and bug
tracker link do get added eventually before the package lands in
Extras. It's those "marketing" tasks (adding a nice icon and
description - something that's not "functional", but still essential)
that most developers won't do if the QA process gets shortened or
simplified.

We developers just have to get used to not being able to do "zero-day"
releases into Extras. Most power users will use Extras-Testing,
anyway, and the time from upload to -Testing is just a few hours if
you promote right after upload. The testing QA process also allows to
just sit back and relax after a release has been published while
waiting for the package to enter Extras. It's still better than for
example Ubuntu, where my package usually has a lag of ~ 6 months to 1
year in the official repositories (from release to upload to Debian
and then merge into Ubuntu, taking into account all freeze periods,
etc..).

For lesser-used apps, there's no problem with them staying in -Testing
for about month (this should provide enough time for a casual user to
detect weird bugs or PM issues). The few users that want to use the
app will happily enable -Testing or wait until it's available in
Extras. Use talk.m.o or planet.m.o to let users know about your app
and provide testing instructions and a link to the testing page. If
you provide a nice screenshot of your app with an announcement,
chances are more people will look at it (and try it out) than when you
just fire-and-forget the source package into the repositories :)

Thomas