ubuntu-appstore-developers team mailing list archive

[Martin Albisetti <martin.albisetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Ubuntu app developers!

I wanted to let you know about a change we've made to how app
namespaces work in the store.
Previously, the format was a reverse-domain approach, with the app
name at the end (eg com.ubuntu.developer.beuno.hello).
That worked fine while we just shipped a phone and the only UI for
interacting with packages was in scopes.

Now that we're approaching convergence with the desktop on the one
hand, and Snappy on the other, it becomes more common (or in the case
of Snappy, the only way!) to interact with apps from a command line.
The reality is, the reverse-domain approach was flawed, as it became
clear the first time we typed "snappy install
com.ubuntu.developer.beu...", I go annoyed half-way through.

So we've decided to change it. The new format will be:
packagename.developername (eg hello.beuno). That'll be the default.
In time, we'll introduce a process to nominate packages into a
top-level namespace (eg, hello), but for now, it should be much nicer
to type and read.

Existing packages are not affected, they keep the same old-style
namespace. In fact, it's crucial they do as that's what clients look
for when updating. New apps, however, will use the new format.

In the future, we plan to introduce a one-time migration option that
will move over apps with the old-style namespace to the new one, and
rename it properly in all installed clients as well, to ensure your
users aren't affected in any way.
If you don't really have any users yet, feel free to unpublish the
existing app and publish a new one under the new-style namespace.

As usual, hop on to #ubuntu-app-devel if you have any questions.


-- 
Martin