Request For Candidates: Application Review Board

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, August 09, 2010 05:18:12 pm Mathias Gug wrote:
> Excerpts from Scott Kitterman's message of Mon Aug 09 17:00:40 -0400 2010:
> > On Monday, August 09, 2010 04:57:20 pm Elliot Murphy wrote:
> > > On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu at kitterman.com>
> > > 
> > > Not trying to answer for Jono, but I think that snippet of the
> > > description doesn't hit the real benefit of the new process (as I see
> > > it). I don't think the submission process or the review process is
> > > necessarily less labor here than it would be for going through REVU. I
> > > think the key difference is one of timing.
> > > 
> > > As an application developer, when I want to ship a LOLCats app or
> > > custom healthcare app for endocrinologists who speak Tagalog on
> > > iPhone, Android, Windows, or OS X, I ship that app on top of a stable
> > > and already released operating system. With Ubuntu/Debian, if I want
> > > the app to show up in software center I need to ship the app as part
> > > of the operating system itself, subject to the same rigorous process
> > > that is essential for developing a stable base platform, because the
> > > current process doesn't distinguish between the rules for updating
> > > libc and the rules for shipping a LOLCats app.
> > > 
> > > To me, the key benefit of this new process is providing a way for app
> > > developers to ship applications on top of stable, released versions of
> > > Ubuntu. A key part of the review process will be rejecting things that
> > > are too invasive/destabilizing (changing the platform rather than
> > > being plain apps running on top of the platform). I think it will be
> > > greatly beneficial for application developers to be able to deliver
> > > new apps on top of Maverick a full year after it has shipped.
> > 
> > We routinely (and in a light weight way) do this via backports already.
> 
> IIUC Ubuntu Backports [1] covers "Only packages currently in Ubuntu's
> repositories [are eligible for backporting]". Whereas the Post Release
> Apps [2] "only applies to new applications and not existing software
> that is present in Ubuntu archives such as main/universe."
> 
> [1]:
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports#How%20to%20request%20new
> %20packages [2]: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PostReleaseApps/Process#Solution

Yes, so you achieve the same result by getting the package into the 
development release and then doing an immediate backport.  The only barrier to 
this is lack of people to review new packages, so I don't see how creating 
some other process to have people do work that is working around the lack of 
people to do the current process is going to help.

Scott K