AppDevUploadProcess Automatic reviews

[Michael Hall]

On 09/07/2012 07:55 AM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> On Thursday, September 06, 2012 05:43:41 PM Michael Hall wrote:
>> On 09/06/2012 05:07 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>>> On Thursday, September 06, 2012 04:00:25 PM Michael Hall wrote:
>>>> Most of the conversation on the previous thread has been about package
>>>> isolation, but I wanted to make sure the other topics in the spec were
>>>> also being discussed.
>>>>
>>>> One of our primary goals was to eliminate every bottleneck we could.  To
>>>> that end we detailed a series of restrictions, sandboxing and automated
>>>> checks that would allow us to trust that these application could not do
>>>> any accidental harm to the user or the user's system.  Human
>>>> intervention has always become a bottleneck, as man-hours are one
>>>> resource we can't scale up as the need arises, so removing that from the
>>>> process has been a key driver for this spec.
>>>>
>>>> Besides package isolation, the other important method for protecting our
>>>> users is with the mandatory use of an AppArmor profile.  We, together
>>>> with the security team, have identified what additional work needs to be
>>>> done to provide a trustworthy sandbox for applications, and ways of
>>>> informing the user about what access they those applications will need.
>>>>
>>>>  Furthermore the AppArmor profile itself will be generated on our
>>>>
>>>> servers (MyApps) based on the developer's input, and incorporated into
>>>> their package automatically.  This assures us that the profile is both
>>>> correctly made and correctly installed, without the developer having to
>>>> learn how to do it.
>>>>
>>>> The only part of the spec that still uses a human review is in verifying
>>>> the identity of the user (though some process yet to be determined).
>>>> This is important because, as I mentioned above, the other parts of the
>>>> spec are only intended to prevent accidental harm, not intentionally
>>>> malicious code. We believe that verifying the identity of the uploader,
>>>> so that it is not an anonymous relationship between the uploader and
>>>> Ubuntu, should prevent intentional abuse on their part.  If there is a
>>>> case of intentional abuse, we would be able to remove that app and
>>>> prevent the submitter from using the system again.
>>>
>>> Those parts of the spec seemed reasonable to me.  You'll have a hard time
>>> automating review of copyright/licensing information though.  Is there a
>>> plan for that?
>>>
>>> Scott K
>>
>> No, the uploader must claim either ownership of the copyright or
>> approval from those who do to distribute it via Ubuntu.  After that it
>> is their responsibility to convey licensing information to their users.
> 
> It is not rare for free software projects to copy code from other projects and 
> reuse it if it has a compatible license (and sometimes when it doesn't).  Does 
> this mean that projects that reuse code from other projects aren't eligible 
> for this process?
> 

Projects with code reuse will be allowed. The requirement is that they
be "the original author or a proper representative of the upstream
project".  Since the only form of quality control we will have is the
Ratings & Reviews, we don't want a project's reputation to be harmed by
an unaffiliated person uploading packages for it to USC.

> Checking for proper documentation of licenses and copyright (even if it's all 
> one project/person) is the most labor intensive part of the New package review 
> process that Ubuntu archive administrators do.  It's also the part that's 
> critical from a legal perspective because it's how we know that it is legal 
> for Ubuntu (really Canonical and the Ubuntu mirror partners) to distribute.
> 

Because these apps will be in Extras, it will only be Canonical
distributing them (as far as I know, Extras isn't being mirrored).  The
final wording of the agreement will be decided by Canonical's legal
team, but I'm confident that one can be made that will protect both
Canonical and Ubuntu in the event somebody mis-uses code or
misrepresents themselves during this process.

> If someone checks a box and claims ownership, that doesn't mean they really 
> have it nor does it mean that all the code is legally distributable, so I'm 
> not sure what you mean when you say it's their responsibility.  It's still 
> Canonical doing the distribution.
> 
> Scott K
> 


Michael Hall
mhall119 at ubuntu.com