Hi, With my Debian/Ubuntu hat, it'll be impossible to maintain all the screenlets from the community in official repository. Screenlets need a way to easily et safely install individual screenlets. The PPA is a good idea, except that it's Ubuntu only. A way to install it with a classic .tar format will be nice also.
For the PPA option, we could create 1 project, to gather bug report, translations, bzr branch etc ... with 1 PPA. Because adding 1 PPA for each screenlets could be long :) A possible option is to use "quickly", and create a template for screenlets. It will create all necessary stuff and upload to the PPA automatically. At least, I think you can begin to summit your modifications to the main branch, we can sort out the organisation later. The split core - screenlets is necessary and I think everybody is agreed with this. Regards, Julien Lavergne Le dimanche 07 novembre 2010 à 05:54 +0900, [email protected] a écrit : > Hello again, > > After just changing a couple of messages with Julien and Rico, I realise > that I don't really know what do other people on the project think about > the project or about free software in general. It could be that our > conceptions about all this are quite different and this could be a > reason why we think differently about Screenlets. > > I am really for the freedom and active participation of community and I > think Screenlets should be a project in the same spirit. For my mind, > Screenlets should be mainly a framework offered for users for running, > creating and publishing Screenlets and not so much a ready collection of > Screenlets. There are also practical reasons for this: Screenlets' > project itself cannot create and maintain a selection of Screenlets good > enough and up do date. I think this should be left to community. > > The present way of publishing Screenlets as archived files on the web is > rather dirty way of publishing them. It makes publishing of Screenlets > episodic (no automatic updates) and not safe (no dependencies checking). > It's not a preferred way of installing software on a Debian-based > system. Of course a screenlet deloper can decide to publish a Screenlet > on a PPA, but this is not encouraged in any way and would be considered > rather weird (for example, I think there is now just one (!) Screenlet > published in Ubuntu "universe" repositories: monajat-screenlet). > > I think it's time to start encouraging it. > > First of all, we should publish all the Screenlets now in the official > package individually on a PPA. And for the next step, we should be > agreeing and willing to publish on our PPA any Screenlet that "works". > There should be an easy procedure for that. This would make user > Screenlets and "official" Screenlets equal by status and this is > definitely good for the motivation of the community to develop and > publish Screenlets. Only way the official ones would distinguish, is > that we also offer a collection of the best of the best available in our > PPA as a basic recommendation (which is installed together with the > Screenlets core package). > > Installing Screenlets from PPA would add more trust to Screenlets and > would make installing third party Screenlets available for either > suspicious users (PPA is a legitimate source of installing software, > much more legitimate than installing archives randomly downloaded from > the WWW) or users without skills needed to search, choose, download and > install Screenlets from the WWW (but what every user learns first on > Linux system is how to install software from package manager). > > I must admint, that I'm quite eager to make it possible for the > community. So I think we have to implement some way of installing > individual Screenlets from PPA. So let's ask, what is the best way to do it! > > By now I think I prefer the second of the options I envisaged in my last > reply to Julien: To get rid of real Screenlet packs and replace them > with metapackages, which bind together individual Screenlets as Debian > packages. This would be the most natural way to do it on a Debian-based > system and everything would find its solution logically (no problems > with separate installation directories for Screenlets, Screenlet packs, > core Screenlets etc). > > I stress that this is not just adding a new feature to Screenlets. This > is directly addressing the present problem of Screenlets. As you are > well aware of, the present problem is that Screenlets have not been > updated for more than two years and that the "official" pack of > Screenlets is really outdated and not usable for a general public. Can > you say that you are completely sure these problems will be solved in > the future, if the organization of the project remains the same? > Standing before the fact, that there just now was (or still is, to be > correct) a two years stall in the project? > > I think these problems would be partly solved by giving users > straightforward possibility to commit any Screenlet easily to the PPA, > where other users can easily install them. This way it's not only the > core developer who holds a responsibility and has means to update an > "official" Screenlet, if it's outdated, but it's pushed a bit more on > the shoulders of users. > > I'm sure users can do much of it instead of the core developers and core > developers will have more time to fix the problems in the core > Screenlets package itself. There will be no pressing need to make a big > roadmap to next release with the responsibility to fix and guarantee the > good condition for every individual Screenlet in the core package. The > core developer will just sort out from the metapackage the Screenlets > that do not work well, and update only the ones he thinks are really > needed to update. It will be much easier and less time-consuming to > publish maintenance releases for Screenlets core package and the > probability of two year break between releases will be much lower. > > Of course even now, users can fix the core Screenlets, and they do it > quite a lot on Gnome-look.org, but these updates are really hard to > find, episodic by nature and installing them is wearisome. I hope you > see, that publishing these updates in the PPA beside "official" > Screenlets would make things completely different. Updates by users > would be instantly available to the community, even without the need to > go searching for them on Gnome-look.org or some other place. > > This change will also address the the problem which Julien expressed by > the words "especially the number is important". It wouldn't be so > important anymore to offer a large number of Screenlets as an "official" > Screenlets pack, because lot of the updates to individual Screenlets > would be done by users (and if users don't fix a particular Screenlet, > they probably don't need it so much). > > When I read Rico saying that he has two month "holiday" coming (well, > I've done that myself and it will be fun experience for sure, but not > really a free time, trust me, Rico!) and we should make a roadmap to > "rock-solid 0.2" release without any feature changes, I'm really afraid > that will be an overkill, if it is meant to be be done the way it has > been done until now (updating all the individual Screenlets and > maintaining them). I'm afraid that the community won't get a new > Screenlets this way or if they get it, there will be stoppage of the > project again, after the "rock-solid 0.2" is reached. > > So my proposal is that we go like this: > > 1) We start applying the patches to the Screenlets core. > 2) We remove all the individual Screenlets from core. > 3) We add them to a special source branch for all individual Screenlets. > 4) We create a special team (or take over some of the existing teams) > for updating individual Screenlets (and accept all people willing to be > members). > 5) We create a metapackage to bind couple of really basic and > well-functioning Screenlets (by now I propose just Calc, Clock, Flower, > Notes, Slideshow and Trash for the beginning, because I have updated and > checked these out myself; we can add anything later). > 4) We create a PPA for Screenlets. > 6) We publish all individual Screenlets on the PPA as Debian packages. > 5) We publish the first updated version of new Screenlets core on the > PPA (with the metapackage mentioned above in "recommends"). > > Notice that this doesn't need any extra features to be added to > Screenlets core. It's just a matter of packaging. All individual > Screenlets will be still under /usr/share/screenlets and ~/.screenlets > so everything is exactly the same. Everything will just work. We don't > even need to test it too much either because we are relying on Debian > package managment system to do all the hard work. > > Just like that. > > a) The next step would be to update Screenlets documentation about the > new way of packaging and announce that any Screenlet is welcome to be > included in the individual Screenlets branch, therefore in PPA (and give > instructions for that). We offer also a policy for modifications of > Screenlets. > > b) Then we should merge individual Screenlets branch with Universal > Applets extras, since it contains variety of updated Screenlets easily > modifiable to work with standard Screenlets package (I have done this > modification already in my Stayin' Alive project). > > c) After that I will add some of my own Screenlets I have > created/updated (GoogleCalendar, Slideshow, Twitter, Notes, > FreemeteoWeather) in the individual Screenlets branch and PPA. I will > publish them also on Gnome-look.org, making a note that these Screenlets > as well as all the official Screenlets are also available as Debian > packages on the Screenlets PPA (and that individual Screenlets can be > added there). I will put the apturl for my packages as well. This will > get us some first feedback and users to test out the new PPA style > packaging and help to start updating individual Screenlets. > > d) Next, if we think that Screenlets core is "rock-solid" enough, we > will publish it as well on Gnome-look.org and GTK-apps.org explicitly as > an official new version of Screenlets. This will give a lot of users and > lot of feedback for testing, maybe also helping hands to develop Screenlets. > > Somewhere in this point would be to start to merge Screenlets with > Universal Applets core, if that's possible. > > Now, I don't know what will be the fate of the individual Screenlets as > Debian packages. I mean I'm not sure if they can be added to Ubuntu > repositories for the official release (in Natty Narwhal?), but I suppose > that the "core" ones can be added without problems, am I right Julien? > About rest of them, they will have to be downloaded from PPA. So > probably we should create an easy way for users to add this PPA to their > systems by just clicking a button in Screenlets Manager. > > I'm not also really sure if there should be different PPAs for > Screenlets core and individual Screenlets. If users want to have a > "official Ubuntu version" of Screenlets core and still use the variety > of individual Screenlet packages from PPA, this would be nice thing to > have. But maybe it's too much customisation. > > What we could also do, is to download all the available Screenlets from > Gnome-look.org (and Screenlets.org) by means of a download script and > create automatically Debian packages from all of them and add these to > the PPA. I think this should be just a one-time import, but it's worth > thinking about. If you prefer, these could be imported into a separate PPA. > > Please, tell me how do you feel about this plan or propose something > else. You see I have code burning in my hands, because I think I have a > working and updated version of Screenlets and I want to publish it to > the community. I'd really prefer that the Screenlets project won't split > into some experimental branch and a main branch. > > Sincerely "etc" > Guido Tabbernuk _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~screenlets-dev Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~screenlets-dev More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
