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#11
Warmer (and I was not meaning to imply anything about you in my comments).

I see the best implementation of any sort of certification as orienting around App Manager. Something to inform users: "hey, THIS app is being well-managed so you have less to fear over possible abandonment". Such info should be available when previewing app info. Apps following this process could enjoy other benefits as well, such as prime rotation appearances in Downloads. Just a thought.

I'm not trying to step on any toes here or suggest draconian measures. Bottom line: how do we assure users that apps will likely be maintained, and how do we TRULY encourage coders to indulge? And if my questions are moot or foolish, hey, I can accept that.
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#12
Originally Posted by Texrat View Post
Bottom line: how do we assure users that apps will likely be maintained
That's never guaranteed, but IMHO the best indication would be source code being available under a Free Software/Open Source licence.
 

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#13
Another effort which helps here is the push to get everything in Extras. The benefits for the user:
  • No faffing with "catalogues" or "repositories", they just see lots of great quality software available to install.

The benefits for the developer:
  • A pooling of testers through extras-testing who will hunt down and report bugs.
  • A large pool of users available to them.

The benefits to the community:
  • Packages get into Extras by being compiled by the auto-builder. This means source is available should the developer stop developing.
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#14
That's never guaranteed, but IMHO the best indication would be source code being available under a Free Software/Open Source licence.
The other advantage of a Garage project is that the source code should remain available, even after a dev has moved on and perhaps removed their own public repo from wherever it was hosted. I think this continuity would be a good reason to ensure that projects do have a Garage project associated with them, even if the Garage SCM isn't used for day-to-day development and rather hosts snapshots.
 

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#15
Originally Posted by lma View Post
That's never guaranteed, but IMHO the best indication would be source code being available under a Free Software/Open Source licence.
I was hoping this discussion could avoid the obvious folly of absolutes...

I'm aware there is no such thing as 100% guaranteed... I'm looking for a reasonable level of assurance-- ie, more than is apparent now.

I am really frustrated though by how this is going so far, so maybe I really should shut up. I can see by thanks and responses that either I'm not communicating well or what I'm trying to discuss is seen as a bad idea from the outset...
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Last edited by Texrat; 2009-08-15 at 15:50.
 

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#16
Originally Posted by lardman View Post
The other advantage of a Garage project is that the source code should remain available, even after a dev has moved on and perhaps removed their own public repo from wherever it was hosted. I think this continuity would be a good reason to ensure that projects do have a Garage project associated with them, even if the Garage SCM isn't used for day-to-day development and rather hosts snapshots.
You seem to be the only one understanding what I was aiming for. Maybe we're both crazy?
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#17
Probably
 
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#18
It would also be helpful if some of the changes and hacks made weren't just kept on the developer's site or just in Garage, but an attempt made to push that code upstream - as Nokia themselves has been doing. Also, by pushing that code upstream, we might be able to get upstream developers interested in developing for Maemo specifically, which has happened a few times already.
 

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#19
Originally Posted by lardman View Post
The other advantage of a Garage project is that the source code should remain available, even after a dev has moved on and perhaps removed their own public repo from wherever it was hosted.
Certainly, both licence and code availability are important (see for example the ruby-hildon situation).

I wouldn't go as far as mandating (or even just offering incentives for) use of Garage as there are lots of valid reasons why developers may not want to use it. Besides, publishing in extras also ensures source code availability so isn't the push for extras enough to cover the disappearing developer case?
 

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#20
Originally Posted by lma View Post
Certainly, both licence and code availability are important (see for example the ruby-hildon situation).

I wouldn't go as far as mandating (or even just offering incentives for) use of Garage as there are lots of valid reasons why developers may not want to use it. Besides, publishing in extras also ensures source code availability so isn't the push for extras enough to cover the disappearing developer case?
I've been trying to move past that word Garage, as it has turned out to be a totally unnecessary stumbling block, but I admit the original error was mine in the first place.

Can we agree that SOME sort of public content management has distinct advantages for the community and especially end-users, over private content management? Doesn't the latter work against the very concept of FOSS?
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