Getting new packages into Ubuntu

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 06:08:16PM +0200, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> - there are lot of people out there who writer softwares and have no
> interest to learn enough about Ubuntu to become a MOTU, they just want
> to reach users, they should be welcome to join as well and in a way
> which is not to difficult for them
> - you were recently complaining as well about the number of packages
> that see one upload and stop being maintained that we have to fix then,
> do we want those in the main archive because they attract people or
> would they be better suited in extras?

I'm not saying that extras shouldn't exist; I think it should be a good
fit for certain kinds of packages and certain kinds of developers.
However, I do remain somewhat concerned that if and when it takes off
people will start consistently directing new developers away from Ubuntu
and towards extras when they might have been the sort of person who
would become a productive general Ubuntu developer.

I also think that we have a regrettable though understandable tendency
to focus on the products we work on as the most important ones, and
dismiss everything else as leaf applications that don't really matter
much.  There are a lot of packages in universe that we aren't interested
in for our primary products but which are mission-critical for certain
segments of our user base, and that are definitely worth having in the
primary archive where we can e.g. make sure that they build, are built
against current libraries, build other things against them, encourage
people to integrate, etc.  I don't think extras will be good for
everything and I want to make sure that we don't start throwing things
out of universe that really do belong in universe rather than in extras.

Extras is a useful innovation, but let's be thoughtful about how we make
use of it.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]