[maemo-developers] Package promoting

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Wednesday 22 September 2010 21:51:29 Attila Csipa wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Polyvertex <polyvertex at gmail.com> wrote:
> > community and let people vote for/against an application *after* it
> > has been released. Thus, only 2 repositories should be enough :
> > 'extras' and 'extras-beta'.

I actually think it would be very useful to have a way to vote for/against an 
app in Extra and to provide user reviews of it.  Not with the purpose of 
removing the app, but to help people find good/interesting/fun/important 
apps.  My view (which I know others do not agree with) is that Extras should 
be a very inclusive home: for any app which does not cause actual damage 
(e.g. major security problems or needing a reflash).  It should be the user 
reviews which sort the good apps from the bad ones, within Extras.

Actually, the capability for ratings and comments on Extras apps is already 
implemented but it only works with the Maemo Downloads pages, which limits 
its usage somewhat.  I would love to see that incorporated into a real app 
navigator application on the device which could present Extras apps to me, on 
the device, sorted any way I want.

None of that, however, means I disagree with the 
extras-devel/extras-testing/extras approach we have today.  Much kudos to 
Attila, and others, for fixing the serious problems with the extras-testing 
backlog which means it now seems to be working well at doing its core job of 
finding serious problems while not banning apps unnecessarily.

I do have a slight concern about how efforts to increase feedback from testers 
might cause voting down of apps which are just poor, not dangerous.   In my 
view, those should not be stopped from getting into Extras -- they should 
just appear low down in lists of apps by rating.  If I want to install a hard 
to use but safe app, because it does something I really want to do and I will 
put up with its faults, I shouldn't have to enable extras-devel to do it.

Graham