ARB Review

[Scott Ritchie]

On 4/10/12 4:04 PM, Jono Bacon wrote:
>   * Defining Scope - I didn't see this myself but a member of my team
> observed that some ARB members have fixed bugs in some of the apps in
> the interests of resolving the issues to get them through the queue.
> While an admirable contribution, time spent fixing bugs in one app
> takes time away from other apps getting a review so I think it could
> be useful to define the scope of app reviews better to focus just on
> reviews, not fixing bugs in the apps.
>
>   * Being Stricter With Needs-Information - I have suggested this a
> number of times before, but I still see that applications that are
> waiting upon feedback from a developer languish in the queue. I think
> we should put a strong "if there is no response within a week, it gets
> rejected". This will put the responsibility in the developers hands to
> be timely, which I think is reasonable given that the ARB is a
> community team offering their spare time to provide these reviews.
>
>   * Review Assessment Criteria - I think it could be useful for us to
> discuss what kind of criteria the ARB are using to review apps in the
> queue. I suspect there are areas in which the ARB could provide a
> lighter-weight review while still providing the assurances they
> provide around quality and security. As an example, in my (humble)
> opinion, if an application installs, can be removed, and does not pose
> a security risk, it should get through. If the application is terrible
> quality or crashy, the ratings and reviews will tell that story to our
> users.

Not to get all technical solution to social problem, but these are all 
in principle much simpler if we just programatically package apps with 
pkgme and shove them in containers.  There would be limited exceptions 
(icons, .desktop files, mime types), but those could in principle be 
handled automatically on the developer portal -> pkgme interface as well.

I'm not sure of the current state of these tools, however.  James Westby 
is one of the guys to talk to.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie