Request For Candidates: Application Review Board

[Christoph Witzany]

On 08/18/2010 09:00 AM, Stephan Hermann wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 01:45:53PM +0200, Christoph Witzany wrote:
>    
>> On 08/17/2010 12:37 PM, Stephan Hermann wrote:
>>      
>>> On Monday, August 16, 2010 05:52:38 pm Martin Pitt wrote:
>>>
>>>        
>>>> Stephan Hermann [2010-08-16 16:46 +0200]:
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> So, we are pushing those "non-permanent" applications to ubuntu and we
>>>>> (as in ubuntu) take care, that this doesn't destroy our distro?
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>> Hm, I think this misunderstanding keeps appearing here: The entire
>>>> point of those apps are that we _don't_ have to include them all into
>>>> Ubuntu.
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> ra
>>>        
>> While I think it would be wise to make this software clearly
>> distinguishable from Ubuntu(Community) supported applications (maybe by
>> another Category like the partner repository), I do not think that the
>> hosting by Ubuntu/Canonical matters too much.
>>      
> Well, if I clearly add the partner repository of Canonical to my sources.list,
> I know that not Ubuntu is responsible for e.g. sun-java6* packages.
> The URL for this is named *.canonical.com, so if I have a problem,
> I have to ask someone from Canonical not from Ubuntu.
>
> If this pocket will be hosted under Ubuntu domain names, I would think that
> those packages/apps are Ubuntu supported in some way (even universe is
> supported by the Community) therefore I will raise any issues
> towards Ubuntu devlopment.
>
>
>    
>> Likewise in the Android market nobody would blame Google for strangely
>> behaving apps and there is no strict QA or other authorization process
>> (IPhone ...) in place.
>>      
> It's not like Android/IPhone App Store.
>
> For those app stores there is only Google/Apple and the App Developer to blame,
> most likely Google will be blamed when there is a buggy or misbehaving app
> on their app store.
>
> AFAIK Apple has some sort of reviewing QA for the apps in their app store, so
> they are taking of the support burden or the caring burden.
>
> But we are not Google, we are not Apple, we are not Canonical (from the Ubuntu viewpoint).
> We are Ubuntu, and we are a lot of contributing people, who are trying to have Ubuntu in a
> good shape and want to have good quality.
> So if we have apps who are poorly maintained, even when they are only for one stable release,
> I do see many users who will use those apps who will blame Ubuntu. They won't blame Canonical
> or the app maintainer.
>    
I can't see this happening if you make clear on install that these 
packages are _not provided by Ubuntu_.

Users will care nada about where theapplications are hosted and will 
blame Ubuntu as much as they blame Softpedia for bugs in a freeware app 
they download there.
> If we are delivering those apps via Ubuntu namespace, we will be responsible, eventually not in a
> way that we are at fault, but we do hold our heads and names for those apps out of the window.
>
> Users of Ubuntu are demanding good quality from us, and having simple apps with less or no support
> in the future, the try of giving "good quality" and a good reputation will be a ride against windmills.
>    
Users care much more about discoverability and availability of 
applications than over quality.

The success of the app stores proves this conclusively. Also the success 
of windows was based to a big part on the fact that you could very 
easily install anything somebody provided in the net as .exe .

The reference of a platform is connected with the ability to achieve my 
goals with it. And the swift availability of current software is a key 
factor for this. Waiting 6 Months is just not an option for most people 
most of the time. That's an age nowadays.


> The new pocket needs to be an outside hosted archive, which has nothing to do with Ubuntu.
> Therefore we need something like the partner repos from Canonical for those apps, which is really
> different from the Ubuntu one.
>
>    

As long as it is easily discoverable in Ubuntu (as in enabled by default 
preferably), this would serve the purpose equally well.

However the ubuntu community should be interested in making Ubuntu as 
relevant as a platform as possible. So it's in the best interest of the 
community to provide an easy way to as many applications as possible.

just my 2c
cw