On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 12:08 +0300, ext Tomas Junnonen wrote: > ext Ed Bartosh wrote: > >> The problem is that the repos are frustrating to access and use, so folks > >> are throwing up their own instead. > > This one I don't understand at all, sorry. What frustration are you > > talking about? For those developers who has garage accounts it's just > > matter of sending one e-mail asking for access to extras. What kind of > > frustration do you see here? > > > >> It's an often discussed problem on > >> the developers list, although I don't recall that any clear conclusion > >> has been reached beyond "Nokia is working on making the repos better", > >> or that any clear timeline has been laid out for improvements. > > If it's about extras I think it's 100% community issue. Extras was given > > to community long time ago, but people didn't manage to organize more or > > less working practice to put their packages there. They prefer to have > > their own repositories or just put packages everywhere for some unknown > > reason. > > I think at least partially it's because there's no carrot being offered > to the developers. If the Extras repository was included in the > Application Manager by default, although disabled (as Multiverse is in > Ubuntu, you can show a disclaimer when enabling it), people would be > more likely to upload to it: > > - It creates awareness of the repository. Outside this mailing list few > developers are likely to even know of the existence of this repository. > If the repository is visible in the manager you can Google for > instructions on how to get your own software there. > I'd look at it from community point of view. If we want to have one more line in /etc/sources.list or in some other configuration file why we should wait for Nokia to do that? Is it so hard to make some package for this and put its .install file somewhere on garage? > - It gives the developer a wider audience to distribute to than just > having his .install file on his project page. Plus it's just cool to be > able to install your software "out of the box" in a few clicks. > Exactly! > - Without some official blessing Extras is just-another-repo from > developer perspective, with the added downside of not being fully under > the developer's control. > What I mean is that nothing prevents community to make it 'the repo'. The only two things are missing: clear criteria to get there and team of uploaders or even one uploader. Then if it works it can be improved easily. As a start point simple voting system should be enough, I believe. I can help with uploads, if needed. > The process for delivering to the Extras repository could also be > streamlined: > > - In my opinion there's a "don't call us, we'll call you" vibe in the > instructions on Garage. It can also be changed even if it's true. I had no such impression and I've been using extras for about a year already. And I'm not alone, people who cares are using it. > - Integrate it with the garage project page! When creating a release and > uploading files to the project, there should be a checkbox on the > release page for automagically pushing the packages to the repository. I wouldn't consider it as a showstopper. I like the idea, but it looks like improvement to me. We shouldn't wait for that to start using extras. > If there's any additional hoops to jump through people just aren't going > to bother. Yeah, I can see that. And you know what? It's not because Nokia not doing this and that, it's just because of people who don't bother. As a result we have this mess with tons of repositories and .install files instead of one extra. And we also have users, who have to deal with this mess. -- Ed Bartosh <eduard.bartosh at nokia.com> Nokia-M/Helsinki
