ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Jamie Strandboge <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/16/2013 07:54 AM, Dimitri John Ledkov wrote:
> On 16 December 2013 13:27, Martin Albisetti <argentina@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 10:14 AM, Alan Pope <alan.pope@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> We have core apps and 3rd party apps in the store. Currently each app
>>> in the store has one published version and that has ubuntu-sdk-13.10
>>> defined as the framework in the manifest.json. Related, as I
>>> understand it we have a plan to switch to ubuntu-sdk-14.04 at some
>>> point in this cycle. Do we use this point in the cycle to switch the
>>> apps to depend on the 14.04 framework, making those versions
>>> un-installable on ubuntu-sdk-13.10 based images?
>>>
>>> We _could_ maintain two branches of each app to be installable on
>>> pre-Qt5.2 and post-Qt5.2 - or ubuntu-sdk-13.10 & ubuntu-sdk-14.04, but
>>> can we deliver both to users simultaneously from the store? Does the
>>> store (and indeed the Application scope) support multiple different
>>> versions of the same app which are shown to different users depending
>>> upon SDK framework level?
>>>
>>> If the store and Apps scope do _not_ support this, when will they, and
>>> what's the plan for implementation, or is there some other magic I'm
>>> not seeing?
>>
>> The current situation is that the store supports one version per app,
>> and one version only.
>> While we could adapt it to support multiple ones, I think given the
>> way we've built our platform, easy and reliably updates to the core
>> OS, I think it would be wise for us to stick with one version only.
>> It would reduce the maintenance on developers and keep their focus
>> laser-sharp on the current platform, as well as having an incentive to
>> keep the experience nice and consistent with the platform rather than
>> let it bit-rot over time.
>>
>> IIRC, the scope will send the SDK version it's running and the server
>> will filter apps based on it (apps can define multiple supported
>> versions). Roberto can confirm.
> 
> I am a developer. Due to binary incompatibility between
> framework-13.10 and framework-14.04 and differences in the Qt, I need
> to upload 4 clicks for a version of the application:
> 
> * armhf for framework 13.10
> * armhf for framework 14.04
> * i386 for framework 13.10
> * i386 for framework 14.04
> 
> Are you expecting for me to ship 4 binaries inside a single click,
> when only one of them will be executed on the client machine and the
> rest are unneeded cruft? If that is the case, my application size is
> balooned artificially 4x, and thus is pushed above a threshold one
> would choose to download over 3G for example or worse not install my
> app at all.
> 
> What's the app developer story / plan here?
> 
> I thought we will support one version of the app per ( framework X
> arch ) combinations.
> 
Fat packages are being implemented for shipping multiple binaries for different
architectures in a single click package and these will be per version (which
should cut your example uploads above in half). I think expanding fat packages
to also support multiple frameworks is a mistake-- it adds a lot of complexity
(not least of which is how to apply security policy) and I think the benefit is
negligible-- apps will almost certainly not be expected to work across different
frameworks which suggests using different versions and if your app happens to
work fully with the earlier supported framework, just pick that framework rather
than using two (aiui, multiple frameworks will be shipped on the device).

-- 
Jamie Strandboge                 http://www.ubuntu.com/

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