Serious concerns about ARB policy (was Re: Basenji)

[Allison Randal]

On 02/10/10 17:47, Elliot Murphy wrote:
> Thanks for reviewing this app. However, I have some concerns with the
> criteria we are supposed to be using. As I have thought about things
> for a few hours I realize these are serious enough that I think we
> need to postpone doing reviews until we can have a reset of the
> review criteria, hopefully at UDS. I've realized I don't want to
> endorse things as they stand now, but I also remember that I signed
> up to constructively help evolve a process which I think we need in
> Ubuntu. My hope is that we can quickly fix the biggest problems with
> the review criteria so that we can produce some useful results that
> allow people to ship apps on top of Maverick, as planned.
> 
> Allison, this is not a complaint about your review, which was totally
> following the current criteria. It is a complaint that I think the
> current criteria are producing results which are counter to the
> essence and spirit of the ARB that I signed up for.

I also have some concerns about the process, and am certain that
we'll be growing and changing it over time.

On this particular application, my impression was that the author
decided to try the PostReleaseApps process because he was too busy/lazy
to make some relatively simple changes requested by REVU. I expect as we
go on that we'll get more applications written with PostReleaseApps in
mind from the start, and that they'll end up being a much better fit
than apps that are semi-kludgily readapted to the new process.

I'm not tied to the /opt installation, but it was part of the
specification reviewed by the Tech Board, and I'm convinced that we
shouldn't change it without taking it back to them. It's not an
arbitrary restriction, but a security concern. If we're going to have a
lighter set of criteria for approving PostReleaseApps, we need to
compensate for that with more technical protections from the damage they
might do. The install directory isn't necessarily the best way to do
that, but it's a way that was agreed on by a group of community members
that I respect.

On things like installing images in /usr/lib instead of /usr/share, I
don't see that it gains us or the developers much to have them
installing things in confusing and non-standard locations. I understand
new developers may not know what the standard locations are at first,
but it's so easy to fix. We're not helping them by letting them "get by"
with that kind of problem when we could be gently guiding them to a
better way.

Allison