Well, we have to talk about what enforcement means? Ok. If a developer declines to, say, optify some program and a recommendation is posted that the program not be used, that is a kind of enforcement. Developers who don't follow that guideline are penalized by being criticized.

So, you wanted an example of enforcement. Are you claiming that uniformity among developers is totally not enforced in any way?

Enforcement does not mean that anyone who disagrees gets a bullet in the head. It means that penalties are attached to certain behaviors. No society exists without various enforcements of rules, written or unwritten.

Now we have had our refresher in Sociology 1a. Any more questions?

recommend != enforce.

You know, when a metaphor fails to deliver the intended message, it's usually a good thing to scrap and try again. Sticking to the same metaphor regardless of its impact only displays how little you understand the subject yourself.

But for the fun of, I'll try to explain to you, using your own metaphor what you fail to understand.

So, let's say that in an alternative universe, the developers of a word processor (let's call it ClosedOffice.org) implemented a feature for themselves in version alpha 8, because it was very handy at the time. The users of the software, because they were so handy and so brilliant, discovered the feature, and started using it, publicising it, blogging about it.

The problem, is that the feature to print mailing labels wasn't documented, as it had never been an official feature. It wasn't very polished, and because it was a bit hidden, most users were very intrigued by it, because they thought they'd discovered a way to be cooler than school.

As the years went by, the developers of ClosedOffice.org were a bit amused by the whole thing, and nobody saw any harm... Until version beta 800 and 810 of ClosedOffice.org, when suddenly a lot of people were complaining that when they were using the feature, they started receiving a lot of junk mail due to the mailing labels getting lost everywhere. Another drawback was that after activating the feature, anyone could print off that user's printer... The users complained, and moaned, and were just very difficult.

The developers felt very much annoyed, how could anyone blame them for using a feature which was clearly not intended for the public at large? How could they prevent people from making those mistakes again?

So they ran a vote, they asked users what the best solution was. Now remember, this is ClosedOffice.org, and really, they didn't have to do this. They could've just said "Listen guys, you're idiots, we're removing it to protect you". But no, they still asked, and listened what the community had to say.

A bit after the release of ClosedOffice.org 900, the feature was removed, and all was well... for about 38 seconds. People started yelling, moaning and being difficult again...

The users were childishly screaming: "But why did you remove my feature? It made me feel warm inside". The developers replied "But we didn't remove it! We just made it safe and moved its location!"

But we all know how it ends... Even in a parallel universe, users only think about themselves... They sprout stupidities like "what the majority thinks is not relevant"... True, except when it is.

Did a majority or minority decide this was Off Topic?

Perhaps it is time to make a nice little gui for dpkg ?

Autocratic is my middle name.

No, installing via dpkg -i is effectively a "debug" route and should be avoided unless absolutely essential. The gist I get is that red mode led some people to think that installing .deb files directly was somehow normal.

Of course, no one can stop anyone else from creating such a GUI, but don't expect anyone to support software you install via that method.

Yes of course this is done to protect people from themselves, and more importantly to protect the manufacturer from bad press. People who don't know what they are doing wreck their phones and blame Nokia. But it is also results in more control over who supplies applications to the broader market.

And to protect the system as a whole. Installing packages via dpkg directly is highly unusual for -any- distro that uses APT for package management.

Not in the slightest. An apt repo can be set up by anyone with an HTTP server, and if you can't get your app into the Maemo repos (even -devel) then there's probably a good reason.

You are implying that the reasons for not getting an application into the semi-official repos will be purely technical. That there will be no market reasons, no personal reasons, none of that stuff. That would be the first time, but we can hope.

I am not saying that there is bad intent, I said that there <i>is</i> more control this way, not what such control would be used for.