the hell of Maemo repos

Mark wrote:
> The bottom line is that there are some serious problems in the way
> that Nokia has and continues to approach the ITs and support for
> them. Until they not only acknowledge that but address it
> realistically, they are going to have to deal with the occasional
> "attack". Get used to it! If we customers are going to have to live
> with the everpresent disappointment of devices that aren't coming
> anywhere near to living up to their hype or potential, then you're
> going to have to get used to the occasional complaint or rant. That's
> how it works.

What saddens me about this is that we have seen it all before in the
Sharp Zaurus field and no-one (not vendors, developers, supporters, nor
users) seems to have learned from history.

Nokia have behaved infinitely more responsibly than Sharp ever did, but
the arguments over FOSS or non-FOSS, broken repos, and selection of
software are almost identical.

These things upset people, very clearly, but we live in an imperfect
world, and the best thing to do is try and maintain a dialogue at all
times. No-one is trying to breach Nokia's business-plan security, just
as no-one is trying to force FOSS champions to forsake their principles,
but dialogue means providing information -- both ways.

I'm just a user. I can't fix bugs or contribute upgrades. My N800 has
given (and continues to give) excellent service, and maybe one day I'll
be able to afford an N810 or whatever replaces it, but in the meantime,
it would be nice if we could avoid repeating history.

///Peter

Wow, I'm impressed at how much FUD-spewing sans-facts is going on in
this thread. Bravo.

So, let me set a few things straight:

First, there is ABSOLUTELY no conspiracy involved. Eko1 was not
singled out because it contained a pen-testing tool, in fact, it
wasn't singled out at all. Niels has sent a _lot_ of emails to 3rd-
party repository owners to get them to move their packages to Extras
and close their repositories.[1][2] Eko1 happened to choose to do this
in a slightly more user-hostile way than most by simply closing the
repository and not moving many of the packages to Extras. If you'd
really like me to prove there's no conspiracy, I'll have qwerty12
upload all of his fun little hacker tools to Extras-devel tomorrow.

So, you know who the blame is on for not moving their packages before
they close the repository? The repository owner. Not Nokia, not
anybody from maemo.org that made a request, but the repository owner
who, for whatever reason, decided not to move their packages to Extras.

Clearly transitions like these can cause some short-term instability
that makes things harder for specific individuals, but the overall
effect for the community, and the long-term effect for everybody is an
environment with lots of high-quality, easy-to-install packages
available from right when you take your new device out of the box and
open up the Application Manager (Extras will hopefully come enabled by
default with Maemo 5).[3]

Second, it is exactly BECAUSE of situations like this one (packages
and repositories just disappearing with users being left out in the
cold) that the _Maemo Community_ (note, non of this had anything AT
ALL to do with Nokia) decided that _we_ wanted to make Extras the
centralized repository for community packages and applications.[4] If
packages are in maemo.org, they're more accessible, come with a higher
level of quality assurance, and more likely to remain available in the
long term.

Third, Extras has nothing at all to do with Nokia, it is controlled by
the Maemo Community (i.e., all of you) as a part of maemo.org. Nokia
doesn't have a say in what's allowed into Extras (excepting clearly
illegal or copyright-violating packages--"Nokia's Maemo's Quim's
Package of Pure Evil" would clearly not be an acceptable title--but
there haven't been any of those yet). Ultimate responsibility falls on
the Maemo Community, and, perhaps, the Maemo Community Council, not
Nokia.

I've said my piece, but clearly this thread isn't headed anywhere
useful, so you guys can take it or leave it. I'd prefer to see some
sense and reasonability come back into the discussion, and I'd be
happy to discuss specifics with you if it does, but for until that
point. . . .


Some light reading for those of you that are "just guessing" and
spewing FUD instead of looking at the facts:

[1]https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras
[2]https://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Reducing_number_of_external_repositories
[3]https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras_repository_process_definition
[4]https://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Consolidation_of_Extras

--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council chair

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 3:40 PM, Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> wrote:
> Mark wrote:
>> The bottom line is that there are some serious problems in the way
>> that Nokia has and continues to approach the ITs and support for
>> them. Until they not only acknowledge that but address it
>> realistically, they are going to have to deal with the occasional
>> "attack". Get used to it! If we customers are going to have to live
>> with the everpresent disappointment of devices that aren't coming
>> anywhere near to living up to their hype or potential, then you're
>> going to have to get used to the occasional complaint or rant. That's
>> how it works.
>
> What saddens me about this is that we have seen it all before in the
> Sharp Zaurus field and no-one (not vendors, developers, supporters, nor
> users) seems to have learned from history.
>

...and the Psion Series 5 and up, and the Agenda VR3, and probably
many other cases...

Sometimes I think the old saying would be more accurate if it were
reworded "those who know history are doomed to repeat it". In many
cases, people seem to look at it like "hey, they got away with it,
surely I can too" and gloss over the ending and/or the rest of the
picture...

Mark

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Ryan Abel <rabelg5@gmail.com> wrote:
> Clearly transitions like these can cause some short-term instability
> that makes things harder for specific individuals, but the overall
> effect for the community, and the long-term effect for everybody is an
> environment with lots of high-quality, easy-to-install packages
> available from right when you take your new device out of the box and
> open up the Application Manager (Extras will hopefully come enabled by
> default with Maemo 5).[3]
>

Nobody's arguing that moving things to the maemo repositories is bad,
the issue is the process. However, you must not be using Application
Manager if you think "easy-to-install" is an accurate description. I
always have to make a minimum of three attempts to update the package
lists before it finally goes through. The descriptions are frequently
insufficient to figure out what a package is or does. The categories
are a nightmare. Adding repositories is not trivial, especially if
you're not familiar with Linux. You pretty much have to know exactly
what you want and its package name before you open App Manager.
Apt-get and dpkg are a heckuva lot more reliable, but they're hardly
user-friendly, especially to non-Linux and non-command-line people.

The one-click-install feature on the maemo site is nice, but it
sometimes fails because of dependencies and such.

...and basing an argument on what *may* happen in the future is not valid.

Mark

On Nov 21, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Mark wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Ryan Abel <rabelg5@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Clearly transitions like these can cause some short-term instability
>> that makes things harder for specific individuals, but the overall
>> effect for the community, and the long-term effect for everybody is
>> an
>> environment with lots of high-quality, easy-to-install packages
>> available from right when you take your new device out of the box and
>> open up the Application Manager (Extras will hopefully come enabled
>> by
>> default with Maemo 5).[3]
>>
>
> Nobody's arguing that moving things to the maemo repositories is bad,
> the issue is the process.

Oh? That's what it sounded like to me. Hey, guess I misunderstood.

> However, you must not be using Application Manager if you think
> "easy-to-install"
> is an accurate description. I always have to make a minimum of three
> attempts to
> update the package lists before it finally goes through.

Then something's wrong with your internet, your tablet, or wrong with
the repositories you've added to your catalog. I haven't had a failed
refresh in a long time.

> The descriptions are frequently insufficient to figure out what a
> package is or does.

This is a packager issue, maemo.org has no control over how people
describe their packages. Good descriptions will likely come as part of
the QA program[1]

If they haven't put in a useful description, perhaps it's because
they're having a hard time thinking one up (I know from personal
experience that describing your own work isn't easy). Maybe they'd
appreciate it if you sent them an email with a suggested description?
Or even just sent them an email asking for one. Perhaps they've
forgotten. You do know the maintainers email is included with every
package, right? :)

> The categories are a nightmare.

Again, a packager issue, but, hey, wouldn't you know it we've been
working on that too![2][3][4][5] Right now we're just finalizing the
translations so Nokia can ship the necessary changes with the
Application Manager.

> Adding repositories is not trivial, especially if
> you're not familiar with Linux. You pretty much have to know exactly
> what you want and its package name before you open App Manager.

Hardly. First, there's exactly one repository that you need: Extras.
[6] It's included by default, so all a new user has to do is enable
it, or tap on a .install file for any of the numerous applications
available from Extras (http://downloads.maemo.org/ is a good place to
find them). Having it enabled by default would make a user's life much
easier, though, you're right. Ironically enough, we're working on that
too.[7]

> Apt-get and dpkg are a heckuva lot more reliable, but they're hardly
> user-friendly, especially to non-Linux and non-command-line people.

The Application Manager is a lot better than it was 6 months ago, and
will continue to get better moving forward. Personally, I don't have
many stability issues with it in Diablo, but if you'd like to point
out some and file bugs, Marius is really a nice guy and does his best
to fix them.[8] Non-specific whining really doesn't help anybody.

> The one-click-install feature on the maemo site is nice, but it
> sometimes fails because of dependencies and such.

This isn't the Application Managers fault (well, misdirecting error-
reporting is if you're talking about where it claims dependencies are
"missing" when it really means "I wont install them because it might
break your system")

> ...and basing an argument on what *may* happen in the future is not
> valid.

Certainly the future can never be certain, but there are a lot of very
dedicated people who want it to happen, and are investing a lot of
their time to _make_ it happen. It's the plan for the future, and
plans are what current decisions are based on.

Unless you prefer to doing everything spur of the moment with no
thought to the future? THAT might invalidate future plans as an
argument. . . .


I'll ask for anybody interested in replying to read the follows pages
before you do, you'll find that a lot of your questions will be
answered in them and a lot of your arguments invalidated. :)

[1]https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras_repository_process_definition
[2]http://maemo.org/community/council/1225812124/
[3]http://communitizer.blogspot.com/2008/11/packaging-policy-change-proposal.html
[4]http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Package_categories
[5]http://maemo.org/community/council/1225068586/
[6]http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras
[7]https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3279
[8]https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?classification=Maemo%20Software

--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council chair

On Nov 21, 2008, at 7:04 PM, Ryan Abel wrote:

> On Nov 21, 2008, at 6:24 PM
>
>> The descriptions are frequently insufficient to figure out what a
>> package is or does.
>
> This is a packager issue, maemo.org has no control over how people
> describe their packages. Good descriptions will likely come as part
> of the QA program[1]
>
> If they haven't put in a useful description, perhaps it's because
> they're having a hard time thinking one up (I know from personal
> experience that describing your own work isn't easy). Maybe they'd
> appreciate it if you sent them an email with a suggested
> description? Or even just sent them an email asking for one. Perhaps
> they've forgotten. You do know the maintainers email is included
> with every package, right? :)


Forgot to add another source here: http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail//maemo-developers/2008-November/035646.html

--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council chair

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> I always have to make a minimum of three
> > attempts to
> > update the package lists before it finally goes through.

> Then something's wrong with your internet, your tablet, or wrong with
> the repositories you've added to your catalog. I haven't had a failed
> refresh in a long time.

This happens to me all the time too on my 770. So I have kept upgrading
my OS. Now I am on the latest hacker's edition for 770 and I still keep
running into it. It could be a problem on my end, but this happens
consistently on 3 different networks, so I wonder if the problem is with
the 770.

- --shiv--



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On Nov 21, 2008, at 7:15 PM, Shivkumar Chandrasekaran wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>> I always have to make a minimum of three
>>> attempts to
>>> update the package lists before it finally goes through.
>
>> Then something's wrong with your internet, your tablet, or wrong with
>> the repositories you've added to your catalog. I haven't had a failed
>> refresh in a long time.
>
> This happens to me all the time too on my 770. So I have kept
> upgrading
> my OS. Now I am on the latest hacker's edition for 770 and I still
> keep
> running into it. It could be a problem on my end, but this happens
> consistently on 3 different networks, so I wonder if the problem is
> with
> the 770.


Check the repositories you have in your catalog, the likely story is
that one of them is gone for good.

Actually, the Application Manager lies. Even though it says the old
list is still being used, it actually means that the old list is still
being used for the repositories that failed to refresh. The
repositories that did refresh successfully will have the updates
catalogs.

--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council chair

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Ryan Abel wrote:
>
> On Nov 21, 2008, at 7:15 PM, Shivkumar Chandrasekaran wrote:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>>> I always have to make a minimum of three
>>>> attempts to
>>>> update the package lists before it finally goes through.
>>
>>> Then something's wrong with your internet, your tablet, or wrong with
>>> the repositories you've added to your catalog. I haven't had a failed
>>> refresh in a long time.
>>
>> This happens to me all the time too on my 770. So I have kept upgrading
>> my OS. Now I am on the latest hacker's edition for 770 and I still keep
>> running into it. It could be a problem on my end, but this happens
>> consistently on 3 different networks, so I wonder if the problem is with
>> the 770.
>
>
> Check the repositories you have in your catalog, the likely story is
> that one of them is gone for good.
>
> Actually, the Application Manager lies. Even though it says the old list
> is still being used, it actually means that the old list is still being
> used for the repositories that failed to refresh. The repositories that
> did refresh successfully will have the updates catalogs.
>
> --
> Ryan Abel
> Maemo Community Council chair

Good to know. Thanks!

- --shiv--

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2008/11/22 Ryan Abel <rabelg5@gmail.com>

> >
> > Nobody's arguing that moving things to the maemo repositories is bad,
> > the issue is the process.
>
> Oh? That's what it sounded like to me. Hey, guess I misunderstood.


I agree. You completely missed the point...


> Non-specific whining really doesn't help anybody.


Not an end-user has done non-specific whining at all. This thread started
because of a specific question before deriving into a flame...

The specific question was and still is that kismet package has just
completely disappeared from all known repos... It was and still is all...

Salut,
Sebas.