Proposing a New App Developer Upload Process

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, September 05, 2012 01:29:48 PM Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 01:04:53PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > >App developers don't want to be distro maintainers.  That's why so many
> > >never attempt to get their apps into Universe or Debian.
> > >
> > >Right now PPAs are the easiest way for app developers to deliver their
> > >apps, so that's what they're using.  It makes things worse (and less
> > >safe) for users, but when they are faced with the choice between
> > >installing yet another PPA from someone they don't know, or not getting
> > >the app they want, they have been installing the PPA.
> > 
> > Certainly, but the current ARB level of effort could have gotten packages
> > into the distro via backports with almost certainly less effort on the
> > part of ARB members and no more on the part of app developers.  Absent a
> > highly automated system, the technical rationale for extras is very weak.
> 
> Not sure if something was lost in translation here, but the new proposal is
> precisely about implementing that highly automated system.

I understand that, but I think the current proposal is insufficient to reach 
that goal.  Part of my confusion is that to date the way extras has been run 
has been largely counter to it's stated goals and it's been done so at the 
expense of more efficient alternatives to achieve what's been achieved so far 
(this is not post-facto hindsight speaking - better alternatives were 
discussed at the time and rejected).  I am afraid the same thing will happen 
again.

Scott K