Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Maybe that's why Windows OSS is so useless. ;-) No, seriously, though, the distribution of Windows OSS software across multiple websites can't possibly help grow the operating system. (Which works fine for Windows, since it doesn't need growth.)

As a Maemo user, I'd rather use 1 website to browse 500 applications than 50 websites to browse 10 applications each. And because the community is so small, it pays for us to stick together.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

It's ironic. Just recently we had a(nother) thread on community software QA that stirred up a lot of emotion here. Now here's something proposed that certainly began with good intentions but does indeed have the potential to create or exacerbate fragmentation.

Here's what I would have rather seen with the time, energy and resources devoted to this: a solution to the software QA problem. Some sort of synergy with maemo rather than overlap and possible competition.

It concerns me when a developer says he's too lazy to create a maemo project, because I have to wonder what else they're being lazy with-- QA, documentation, libraries, etc. If it becomes easier to "manage" a project using this new solution then the result will not only be fragmentation, but further erosion of quality. Rather than enable laziness, we should encourage at least some degree of discipline. I realize that last word seems to fly in the face of FOSS, but without discipline Linux would remain a cool hobbyist plaything, nothing more.

I really, really, REALLY wish the community developers would team more. The resources are there. The need is certainly there. I'm not sure what's kept it from happening like I've seen it happen in similar circumstances. What's lacking? An Internet Tablet Developer School?

Anyway, just my meager 2 cents on the subject. I won't argue much on this one because I know Reggie's heart is in the right place and the last thing I would want to do is rain on his parade.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I agree with Tex if you like it or not Reggie worked hard on it so you shouldn't complain we wouldn't complain if someone added a feature to a program we didn't like because hey he is using him time to work on it for us.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Well... actually I *did* complain a bit... ;)

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Yes but you still gave him credit for his hard work

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Taking a break from the, errr, wienie roast...when looking at the downloads forum, how can I know at a glance what type of application I am looking at? As in word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, multi-media, PIM...whatever?

Right now I could see the organization getting like a rats nest over time.

BTW, I do not mind the idea of this section being here...in fact I like it. But I will stay out of the fray...obviously there is significant polarization and, well, I don't need more complications in my life...I have enough already. :D

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

^ wienie :p

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I've made changes to add the category in the thread. Thanks for suggesting it.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

A program we don't like we can just choose not to use. Another downloads section isn't something we can ignore in the same manner. Not as a developer (if you want exposure in the most places possible) and not as a user (if you want to get software).

I'm not bashing Reggie for his clearly good intentions (something about "the road to hell . . ." does come to mind, though :p), I'm bashing this idea for the effect that its current implementation is likely to have on the community.

I don't consider the basic idea to be flawed—leveraging itT's strength (discussion) to help improve software, but there are major issues in its implementation. I say again, why wasn't collaboration (in the form of some sort of syndication) with maemo.org considered? This would rather perfectly solve all the issues here. Developers don't have to double their workload by maintaining their projects on both maemo.org and itTSS (because itTSS picks things up through syndication), and users don't have to search two separate places for their software, because both places will be in sync.

Reggie, I know your heart was in the right place, but I don't think you fully considered the repercussions here. Don't take this as an assault on your good intentions, but as an assault on their implementation. :)

On the bright side, this is really a fairly easy thing to fix. Talk to X-Fade and the other maemo.org people, get the syndication set up and integrate it—problem solved.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

The syndication thing would still not fix that some people don't post there software to maemo.org and I know some will not post it here either.
I think the best thing is for me to just agree to disagree with the people who don't like the download section here I can see us dragging this on for week. I don't see it as that much more work for developers. Since I have developed many programs for other things just not maemo yet haven't decided what to work on yet lol.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Honestly, I don't think you've been involved with the community long enough to understand the issues here. :)

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I understand what you are saying. I just don't think it will make that big of a difference people are used to having to get software from more then one site. So I don't see why it matters.

Just because I don't agree with what your saying doesn't mean I don't understand it

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

No, but what you're saying indicates that you probably don't. ;)

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

What part of why I"m saying indicates I don't know what I'm talking about

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

And here is where I put my hard(@$$) hat on.

The question is: why not?

Before anyone jumps to a response, I'm going to be a really hard sell on any rationalization against using maemo as designed. To be quite blunt, if someone resists using the proper resources that stubbornly, do I want to use their software? I realize that's very broad and there are likely good apps that aren't managed using maemo, but I'm not using them-- nor, likely, will I.

So again, the challenge is out there: why NOT use maemo? And I personally can't accept excuses like "I'm too lazy". In my opinion the only valid reasons against it would have to revolve around usability and technical issues.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

THe point should be some of the downloads already have 100+ download and some of this software was on maemo.org or atleast posted about on these forums. So the download section is helping Night

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Even if that were true, andrew, and people were only,downloading them because they are listed in ITTSS, syndication would have achieved the same end, and with no intervention on the developer's part. Advertisement is not a bad idea - fragmentation is.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

My take on this (obviously not the consensus) is that the maemo os development community is too transient to force into a traditional debian/ubuntu maintainer structure.

A large portion of Maemo software is pretty much homebrew and ports. Forcing Maemo.org actually damages the homebrew aspect of it... mostly since its a broken website (akamai + midguard cms apparently do not mix). Perhaps ITT software could better enable this homebrew aspect.

Additionally (and probably unpopularly) i think relying -solely- on repos hurts tablets. I think whenever possible, tablet developers should make some attempt to release a version which statically links any necessary libraries so that there is no dependency hell. This is done for desktop users with thumbdrives such as those here http://portableapps.com/

I vote that Reggie starts up his own repo, and provide a simple and logical means to publish to it, instead of the beaurocracy that is submitting to maemo extras. (Honestly do we really need a sign our packages for a tablet which ships with 256meg filesystem?) One reggie repo would be better than 10 or so independent repos, would it not? Of course that implies alot of potential bandwidth which may not be wanted.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Great point pipeline. Other examples are KDE, Debian, etc. that I guess will not make it to Maemo.org.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I would just like to see how this works out. Why don't we just give it a little time? Maybe the web devs at maemo will learn something from it. Either through itT's upcoming success or failure with software management.

Maybe it'll just be motivation to make everything more efficient and friendly at the real site for maemo. Thereby avoiding fragmentation. (Ok, kinda grasping at straws).

Because, to tell the truth, the developer side is fine at maemo.org (my opinion). But, the end-user side kinda sucks (my opinion). Ergo, we learn from this.

I think we should at least give it some time.

Thanks a lot, Reggie. This could pretty awesome :D

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I'll grant that. But it looks to me like the wrong reaction to that has taken place. Rather than analyze that and get down to root cause, we throw up our hands and say, "okay, the community is disorganized, so we need a disorganized solution to project management!"

I'm sorry, but I still take the other tack-- I see this as an educational challenge more than anything. I was half-joking with the suggestion of a developer school, but in all seriousness that's close to the solution zone I think we *should* be going toward.

The community is transient? Fine-- but instead of working around that, why not drill down a bit deeper and explore why that is-- and effect a REAL solution?

And, dammit-- why am I still arguing this? :eek: :p

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

well, for some it will be easier to post it here, because the frequent the forums, it should be easy for some sync-ing of the new and maemo.org
and the ones whoe wouldn't anyways, probably have their own repo, and are adamant about it, so most things wouldnt change their mind anyways
but you could always have a itT user account and upload all the things loaded here, to maemo.com under a general itT account, though there are obviously problems with that, the point is, to me at least, is that this here is a good thing

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Okay, Midgard may suck, but that doesn't make it unapproachable to "homebrew". There is really very little "management" that you have to (or are even able to do) with Maemo Downloads. It is not a project management website like Maemo Garage is. You don't have to suffer much Midgard to get your software on the Maemo Downloads site, and it's certainly no excuse for a small-time developer to avoid it.

Okay - Maemo Downloads doesn't prevent this, and neither does the Garage.

What "beaurocracy"? And Maemo Downloads doesn't require signing debs - are you thinking of the Garage? Remember, they are two completely separate systems. Maemo Downloads requires very little of its contributors besides having to put up with Midgard. Garage requires a bit more.

I can understand a developer not wanting to deal with Maemo Garage - there are better project management websites out there. But there is no excuse to avoid Maemo Downloads unless your software is not ready for primetime.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Thanks for that last post, gnuite, and I can see that my posts should have also made those distinctions.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Why didn't Reggie bother to talk this out with the community and the Maemo devs to come up with the best solution? Instead of getting something useful out of it that helps everybody, we've got this nonsense.

GTFO, KTHXBAI

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Is there a "No thanks" button on these forums?

Actually, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, Navi, but in case you aren't: yours is a completely non-constructive attitude to take. Reggie was just trying to help. Some of the rest of us are just providing some constructive (I hope) criticism - that's how public-domain collaborations improve.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

No need for that.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

And of course, there's no reason to delete that specific post and only quote that part of it. There are plenty of other posts you can hunt down, give me infraction points for, and delete too, y'know.

Like I was saying in the post that was deleted, but less "personal attacky" than it already was (which wasn't very much, I might add),
If there was, I'd be in the negatives.

Unfortunately, a bulk of the positive criticisms are being ignored. What are we to do when we can only go absolutely nowhere? I'll gladly acknowledge the good intentions as soon as we have some real feedback on the feedback.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Quim made a very pointed post on maemo-developers that echoes my sentiments almost exactly:

Reggie, in my *personal* opinion you are pointing to the right direction with the wrong munition.
...
Anyway, the maemo.org and ITT communities can figure out the details but it is clear that nobody is interested in harming the neighbor project , stress the already busy developers and confuse the probably already disoriented end users.

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I guess there's nothing more to say. I hope something good comes out of this...

Re: Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Don't hope, make it happen. Nobody but you is empowered to do so. :)

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Some other points not related to fragmentation:

* This approach requires that the user has red pill mode switched on, since big part of the software is relying on other libs or is in wrong category. That's not good at all.
* There should be a direct link to the file, since some use wget to get the file after it fails to other reasons.
* There should be a way to upload the modified source.

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Wow, GA beated me at commenting here about that post. :)

Some hints to focus this discussion:

- This is about http://maemo.org/downloads being an original source for promoting software available or having multiple and eventually competing original sources like ITT software section in the way it is designed now. Why competing with maemo.org as original source. Why going for duplication instead of syndication.

- Creating a page for your app in maemo downloads (developed anywhere with packages hosted anywhere) takes what, 10 minutes? No signing whatever, it's a web form with a button to upload a screenshot. Update the info with a new release even less. Why a developer serious about his work wouldn't spend this extra time? Specially why not when doing this once the info would propagate top whoever wants to pick it up?

- This is not about Garage, take that word out of the discussion. You can manage your software anywhere. We don't want developers pointing users to Garage, period.

- This is not even about extras / extras-devel repositories since you can publish your software anywhere. Nokia will take more seriously the software available in extras as developers themselves take more seriously the fact of having the good and stable software available in extras. But this has nothing to do with this discussion.

I could comment more but it's either at http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail//ma...ay/017783.html or in this thread. It's a bit of a pity that we didn't have this discussion before Reggie (with his best intentions, I have no doubt about this!) invested his time on this.

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Now I see this [DISCONTINUED]. Hey Reggie, let's keep talking. Your idea is fundamentally good, very good. And there are ways to implement it that would make life easier/funnier for users and developers, while making ITT and maemo.org better.

There is you and the core ITT fans, there is the group of maemo developers serious about their work, and there is the maemo.org team, funded by Nokia but 100% community driven. Plus Nokia's support to make it happen, whatever is good for all of you. All the elements are in place for restarting the discussion and proceeding with good multilateral planning and execution.

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Yes, quite.

I did mean to imply that the system should be shut down entirely, only that a greater integration with maemo.org and Downloads/Garage should be sought to avoid fragmentation and prevent duplication of effort.

Leveraging the power of itT to help drive good software development is a fantastic idea, but this particular implementation was lacking, if only in its fragmentary nature.

There's a dead easy way to fix this (well, the technical side might get a little involved, but it's fairly straightforward otherwise), and that's integrating with maemo.org through some sort of syndication. Don't duplicate the effort and resources that have already been put into project hosting and tracking with Downloads and Garage, utilize them! Drop the hosting/tracking part of the itTSS system, replace it with maemo.org's system and keep the discussions. You end up with effectively the same system, but without the extra effort on the part of developers to keep things in sync.

For example, a Garage project (that has enabled itTSS integration—this may be something that should be optional, but details can be pounded out later) releases a new version over on Garage itTSS picks up the release and creates a thread (complete with release notes, a .install and a link back to the project page). Then users on itT will see it, download it and report bugs, criticisms, and kudos. Easy peasy.

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

Just noticed the DISCOUNTINUED too and I want to throw in my 2c as well.
As you probably know I am the Xournal port maintainer/developer.
I did create a Maemo Downloads page because I know that is the place where the stable software should be and is the place that people (should) search when looking for software.
With my first port I did put up my own repository on my desktop machine in the lab.
I did that because I knew that my patches were hacks to make it work and because I did know if Xournal would have been appreciated by the users.
When I noticed people liked it, and gave me feedback, I started working harder on it and cleaned up the hacks to made them patches and to be in sync with the upstream version.

Anyway, in both cases I did create an ITT thread.
I did that because there was (and, IMHO, there is) no other place where I can listen for feedback.
Comments on the Maemo Downloads section are not enough (and probably even useless) and, as Quim stated, the Garage forums should be used by the developers rather than from the end users.
And, in fact, I am going to create a Garage project for Xournal, but I am going to make it not for the end users, but for me (to have a place where all the Xournal stuff is properly kept) and for whoever wants to help in developing for it.

To summarize, what I miss (as a developer) is a place where I can talk with my users.
The ITT forum is the best place for that, and we all agree with it.

What Quim stated is, as always, correct: the best solution, in my eyes, would be to automatically (if the developer wishes so) create threads in the ITT forums when a new version of the application is being uploaded to Maemo Downloads and have a link to it on the final page.

So that we have, in one page, the Xournal page on Maemo Downloads:

a) a description of the application
b) a way to .install it
c) a way to discuss it -> ITT thread

(just re-read what GA wrote, it's the very same have I wrote here.. :p, sorry for duplicating it)

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

I would like to turn this discussion around and look at it from the perspective of the end-users. When I say end-users, I mean the majority -- consumers with zero to average knowledge of linux, packages, debs, repositories, and Maemo. Let's face it, much of what we have now are just too confusing for them. A lot of them won't install apps and a lot of them will not go as far to know what Maemo is.

I would have wanted a system to make it easy for them. I would have wanted a system that they can use and have them upload desktop backgrounds, themes, maybe submit their own NumptyPhysics levels. I want it to be fun for them by letting them be a part of the system -- able to upload, discuss, and talk directly to the developers.

Instead, what we have is a slow, hard to get to, developer-centric system with an identity crisis. What's more, it has no direct connection to Tableteer, and provides a messy link to Application Manager.

I created a system that I can control and integrate more. It was not much but I had the best intentions to help the end-users and ultimately love their tablets. It was shot down before it can even take off.

I don't think no one in Maemo.org (those who run it) shares my vision. Sure, they want to improve some things but up to what level? Is it up to the end-user level?

Syndication is easy but I think is the wrong solution. All it does is make the developers' life easier but does really nothing for the end-users.

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

we need to make this more of a mainstream device...which its not right now its seen as a well i dont know....i dont see joe 6 pack with, it heck i dont know if i really want it the gorram thing make me feel like i don't know what im doing...and when i ask how do i...well lets not go there...we need a better and easier area for newbies and novices to explore and learn there devices foibles

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

There's a difference between backgrounds and NumptyPhysics levels and application software. If you want to provide a hosting solution for the former, that's fine - it's as both an application developer and an end-user many of us object to the latter.

1) As an end-user I want to go to one place to look for software and see everything which is suitable for me (and that one place is the Application Manager, or - failing that - downloads.maemo.org)

2) As a developer, I want to announce releases of my product in one place, without having to copy & paste the same announcement to half a dozen different places.

I think that's disingenous. Sure, there are software developers who don't care about their users that much (buggy, half-Hildonised software, not put in extras(-devel) etc.), but there are others who do care about the end-user experience. Removing whatever perceived barriers are in-place to the former group requires co-ordination and discussion, though.

Re: [DISCONTINUED] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section
 

That's the thing, look at it from the end-user's point of view. They are the same, and they should be in the same place.

I have to clarify that I'm when I say Maemo.org, it's the folks who run it, not the developers. I've edited my post.