Call for input on the new Ubuntu App Dev Upload Process spec

[David Planella]

Hi everyone,

As you all know from recent conversations on this list and elsewhere,
some of us in the Community team, with input from many others, have been
preparing a specification to define a new process for app developers to
upload their software to Ubuntu.

The background is well known to all of us: we're at a point where we've
clearly reached the limit in terms of human review capability and
application throughput for third party apps in Ubuntu. Despite our best
efforts, we're currently putting a strain on reviewers (who cannot keep
up with the incoming stream of apps) and providing an unsatisfactory
experience for app authors (who have to endure long delays to be able to
upload their apps).

The success of the recent Ubuntu App Showdown has ultimately given us
proof that the current approach is obsolete in terms of scalability.
Despite growing the number of reviewers in the app-review-contributors
and the great work of all members of the ARB (remember Jonathan Carter's
legendary 50 votes mark before resigning from the Board?), it is clear
that we need to improve the process if we want to grow Ubuntu as a
platform of choice for app developers in the future.

Having identified the problems and assessed the different options
available, in the course of the last few weeks we have been working to
put forward a proposal for a new app developer process. It is this new
process what we would now like to present to the App Review Board to
gather their input on.

We would like the ARB to be part of this process, and in preparation for
the public announcement, we'd like to ask for your contribution to:

* Review the spec at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AppDevUploadProcess
* Provide any feedback either on the Feedback section (preferred) or
  on this thread.

Note that the final goal is to work together with the wider Ubuntu
developer community to ratify and implement this specification. We are
going to do this in the course of the week, but before we do that, we'd
like to be sure we've factored in any input from the ARB, hence this
initial call for feedback. We would also like to ask you to please hold
off commenting the spec on the ubuntu-devel channels before we announce it.

Thanks!

Cheers,
David.

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