remember not all are tecnically dev's though... There is alot to pickup - so getting it all right first time is a challenge...
So sometimes its just making sure that when they look for help its a pleasure and not a chore
I'm hoping, as the QA process and team evolve, they're able to be seen less as a barrier to, and antagonists of, Maemo development. Along those lines, might it make sense to provide developers with a easy to use, and easy to find, method of requesting a QA team review of an application while the app is still in -devel? New (or not-so-new) developers could then get (hopefully friendly, helpful, guiding) feedback on their packaging, etc. earlier. It might help avoid and reduce some of the hard feelings developers seem to be experiencing when packages fail QA, particularly for "technicality" issues.
I just want to mention that one of the problems you might have seen ("xsbc-bugtracker:" at the beginning of the field) is not an indication that the developer isn't taking things seriously; it is an indication that the developer is using py2deb to package his/her product. I had to patch py2deb myself to fix this problem, and Khertan has supposedly patched other peoples' versions individually, but I'm not sure he ever released an updated version to the repository.
I just want to mention that one of the problems you might have seen ("xsbc-bugtracker:" at the beginning of the field) is not an indication that the developer isn't taking things seriously; it is an indication that the developer is using py2deb to package his/her product. I had to patch py2deb myself to fix this problem, and Khertan has supposedly patched other peoples' versions individually, but I'm not sure he ever released an updated version to the repository.
That's the case with my stuff. Thanks for bringing that up.
I just want to mention that one of the problems you might have seen ("xsbc-bugtracker:" at the beginning of the field) is not an indication that the developer isn't taking things seriously; it is an indication that the developer is using py2deb to package his/her product. I had to patch py2deb myself to fix this problem, and Khertan has supposedly patched other peoples' versions individually, but I'm not sure he ever released an updated version to the repository.
Yeah, he has been helpful - sorted mine out quickly.
He has created his own repo and the new version works well
Good to see developers making developers tools so to speak
just an idea:
once there's broad consensus about what certainly is *not* a valid bugtracker, could the package interface check that, too? the way it already detects missing bug tracker links?
you certainly cannot make the machine read the wiki and check if all criteria are met... but there could be something like a blacklist based on either regular expressions or a simple string comparison.
think of the following situation: a devoloper puts package A, version 0.1 in -testing. bugtracker: talk maemo.org. - it's soon clear that talk.maemo.org is not a valid bugtracker (a specific thread might be, don't know), so there's a few thumbs down from people who know the rules. but there's also thumbs up rom those who don't care and simply think the application is cool.
a week later, the same developer puts version 0.2 in testing, along with a new package B. again, all bug tracker fields contain only talk.maemo.org. - what will happen is a race between those voting up and those voting down.... and some version may still escape to extras.
putting talk.maemo.org on the blacklist as soon as it's first seen could prevent this and wouldn't require attention of the testers wrt subsequent packages.
Ok, I think there's a bug here, which is quite ironic. I'm still getting reports that my bugtracker link is broken, and I think it is because the packages interface is pulling that field semi-randomly from various versions of the package, depending on factors I have yet to fathom.
For instance, earlier this morning the package overview page was showing the old broken bugtracker field, and now it is showing the correct one.
...And I just did a refresh of that page, and it is showing the broken link again!
ARGH.
EDIT: It is doing the same thing on the package instance page, too. Randomly pulling the description and bugtracker fields (but not changelog, interestingly) from old versions of the package, or the current version, depending on the whims of The Machine.
The Moblin bugzilla (and maybe others) has an interesting feature: It has a "file new bug for <product>" link at the end of a page when you search for bugs in <product>. If a developer wants to make sure that users actually read existing bugs reports before filing new ones, linking directly to the query (=the search results) in the bugtracker field wouldn't, IMHO, not only be acceptable, but even better than directly linking to the "enter new bug" form.
what's your opinion?
(I think there's no such "enter new bug"-link in the search results on bugs.maemo.org)
- sorted mine out quickly.