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Posts: 5,478 | Thanked: 5,222 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ St. Petersburg, FL
#32
Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
One of the recurring themes I keep seeing here is how "open" maemo is. And how quite a few people wish it were more open. Something along the lines of: I'd never get an iphone because it's locked down.... Yet here we are discussing asking people to shut down their repositories and only use the "approved" repository. Even though there are perhaps minimal hoops to jump through, isn't this still a form of locking down the platform? The very thing that so many people are against?
Hardly. Do we require people to shut down their repositories? Or users to only use Extras? No.

What we're asking is that developers consider the clear benefits to their users (and to them) that moving their packages into Extras will bring. Users get high-quality software from a centralized and stable location and developers get the benefits of the maemo.org infrastructure.

This isn't even vaguely comparable to how Apple locks down the iPhone.

Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
Yes, there are some very valid arguments for this, but I,think it's unreeasonable to think that a user would blindly install all 60 or whatever repositories. Most likely, a new user will be timid about exploring outside the default repositories unless they really need to. Likely it will be one at a time after that as they see things they want to try.
You, evidently, haven't spent much time in the trenches troubleshooting for people. Users will and regularly do add all the repositories on gronmayer and they regularly end up in very bad situations because of it. Trust me. I've helped people out of these bad spots dozens and dozens of times. Perhaps when you've spent as much time as some of us have helping users out of bad spots then you'd see exactly how silly and ignorant iPhone-lockdown comparisons are in this situation.

Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
By making it harder to install things off the beaten path, less users will be willing to test them. In the end, fewer programs.
********. This is what happens when every developers opens up their own repository: users have a bad experience and blame the platform, you end up with fewer users which means fewer developers which means fewer programs.

What do you get with Extras? High-quality stable software that's accessible right from the first boot on a new-out-of-box device for end users, unstable beta-quality software for adventurous users willing to test software, and alpha-quality software for power users and developers. Everybody is given the information to pick the software that suites their needs, developers get access to a much larger audience and users get good software. In the end, everybody wins.
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