hmmm, I inadvertently sent mails directly to Marius instead of to the list by default.<br>I had intended to send them via the ML in general.<br><br>what follows is the mails between myself and Marius, sorry for the confusion:<br>
<br><br>
#####################################################################################<br><br>marius,<br><br>what a lot of work, people have been developing and beta
testers have been using those development packages in private
repositories for years now.<br><br>You are right that users on desktop
systems might be more willing to undertake a configure/make/make
install cycle from source because everything is ready and prepared on
their device.<br>
<br>on maemo this simply isnt the case and the number of people with
active stable development environments is a LOT less than the number of
people willing to test out and report back on software.<br><br>in the past this wasnt a problem, because a developer could ask users to come onboard their private repository (like <a href="http://repository.liqbase.net/" target="_blank">repository.liqbase.net</a> - fake doesnt exist yet) and test a packaged version of an app without conflicting with canola or xournal or anything else.<br>
<br>Now, we have been nicely asked to close these private repositories
and now its indicated for us to make a complete brainfuck of a sidestep
and force willing participants to either completely install scratchbox
and mess their head up doing stuff, or we lose their valuable
assistance.<br>
<br>i think thats unacceptable and we need to find a way to allow best
of both worlds, I respect and value the help of any beta testers and we
want to make life easy for them to get involved.<br><br>gary (lcuk on #maemo)<br><br><br><br>#####################################################################################<br><br><br><div class="Ih2E3d">"ext gary liquid" <<a href="mailto:liquid@gmail.com">liquid@gmail.com</a>> writes:<br>
<br>
</div>> [...] and now its indicated for us to make a complete brainfuck of a<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d">> sidestep and force willing participants to either completely install<br>
> scratchbox and mess their head up doing stuff, or we lose their<br>
> valuable assistance.<br>
<br>
</div>That's not what I was proposing. It's just one of the options. In<br>
order of increasing work for the developer:<br>
<br>
- Let users compile the devel branch from source<br>
(Wont work for Maemo applications, but maybe for libraries)<br>
<br>
- Make separate packages for the devel branch that replace the<br>
packages from the stable branch<br>
(The sweet spot for Maemo, I'd say)<br>
<br>
- Make separate packages for the devel branch that can be installed and<br>
used in parallel with the packages from the stable branch<br>
(Lot's of trouble for little gain in a single user system)<br>
<br>
There is also:<br>
<br>
- Stop releasing stable versions until the devel branch is<br>
released as stable<br>
(Not nice for users of your stable version and has all the<br>
problems that Ryan mentioned in his original mail)<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> i think thats unacceptable and we need to find a way to allow best of both<br>
> worlds, I respect and value the help of any beta testers and we want to make<br>
> life easy for them to get involved.<br>
<br>
</div>I think the sweet spot mentioned above is it. I didn't say that clearly<br>
because I wanted people to make up their own minds about the relative<br>
merits.<br>
<br>
<br>
Let's discuss this on the list.<br><br><br>
#####################################################################################<br>
<br><br>agreed marius,<br><br>but the fact remains that until recently the
accepted way for a developer to allow beta testers to come on board was
to build their standard package as they do anyway and have it available
on their own personal repository, the only work for a beta tester was
clicking an .install file or updating from h-a-m.<br>
<br>this worked nicely for a large number of applications but its major disadvantages were dependencies and bitrot.<br><br>as a maemo developer I cannot easily compile other peoples packages from source.<br>I
build and compile on the 810 itself and whilst it works perfectly for
me, it does not include ./configure so most packages are not available
to me.<br>
I have got scratchbox locked away on a rarely touched vmware image, its
possible for me to dig it out whenever i hear aobut an update, but
certainly not practical.<br><br>The
point of testing is also testing the package itself, if a developer has
to create 2 distinct packages, one for testing and one for real how
does the developer test that his live package includes everything
required and installs and uninstalls cleanly?<br>
<br>The only real way to ensure its valid is to allow a user to beta-test the actual package.<br><br>quite
simply, if we cannot use -devel to allow beta testers to test our
actual software why are we recommending developers use it?<br><font color="#888888">
<br>gary</font><br><br><br>