[Mageia-discuss] a cross-distribution meeting about software installers

[Remy CLOUARD]

On Sat, Jan 08, 2011 at 11:16:00PM +0100, Samuel Verschelde wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Vincent Untz from Novell, who works on openSuse, invited us (and contributers 
> from other distributions, including Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu) to participate 
> in a meeting about software installers and the end-user experience.
> 
> Here is how Vincent presents the project :
> 
> ----- Quote ----- 
> *** Goals ***
> 
> Blue-sky goals:
>     * agree on a common UI to install applications
>     * agree on what metadata to use, how to generate it, where to host it
>     * agree on a protocol to use to provide non-static metadata (featured 
> apps, ratings, comments, etc.)
>     * decide what metadata can be shared between distros, and what should stay 
> distro-specific (eg: do we want user comments to be shared?) 
> 
> In reality, if it turns out we can't all agree on one item, it's still fine: it 
> doesn't mean we can't collaborate on the other items. And some distros might 
> still work together.
> 
> It's worth mentioning here that what matters to us is the end-user experience. 
> It matters more than the technical implementation.
> 
> *** Background ***
> 
> Nearly all distributions are slowly moving towards making it easier to deal 
> with applications, and get information about those. The Ubuntu Software Center 
> is a good example of work being done here.
> 
> At the moment, many of us are working in our own corners, while we could 
> certainly all move much faster if we worked together, especially since we're 
> all targetting mostly the same result.
> 
> We do want content to be provided not just by us, distributors, but also by 
> the users: their experience with an application can inspire other users to 
> install it too. 
> The goals of this meeting is to see what can be put in common and harmonized 
> between various distributions, from the end-user point of view.
> ----- End of quote ----- 
> 
> The meeting will occur in Nürnberg, Germany from January 19th to 21st
> 
> We don't know yet what the outcome of this 3-days meeting will be, but it may 
> be a great opportunity.
> 
> For the mageia side, the participants will be :
> - Michael Scherer (misc)
> - Olivier Thauvin (Nanar), author of Sophie, the cross-distribution RPM 
> database,
> - Samuel Verschelde (Stormi), for the mageia-app-db project.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Samuel Verschelde
Great !

This sounds like a very good idea, such a move would be great to improve
interaction between distributions and divide the needed effort to
produce for each distribution.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m sorry the schedule is a bit too tight for
me, I won’t be able to attend this meeting. Besides, the cost of the
ticket won’t make it possible either.

I’m eager to know what will come out of this meeting, have a good trip !
:-)

Regards,
-- 
Rémy CLOUARD
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
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