ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Rodney Dawes <rodney.dawes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2014-12-18 at 14:03 -0500, Robert Schroll wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 12:16 PM, Rodney Dawes 
> <rodney.dawes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>  I think Launchpad's bug reporting page is simple enough and tries to
> >>  catch duplicates.
> > 
> > I disagree and think the magic "try to catch duplicates" feature is
> > broken and adds complexity to the problem.
> 
> As a technical user, I like the duplicate detection, since it means I 
> don't need to do a separate search before I submit a bug.  For 
> non-technical users, at whom my feature is aimed, I agree that it's a 
> problem.

Why do you feel you have to do a search for existing bugs? If you
encounter a bug, report it. It doesn't matter if other people have found
the same bug or not. Report it. Even for technical users, I have seen so
many bug reports where someone will go comment on a bug that was fixed
and closed 3 years ago, because the duplicate search came up with it,
and they think they have the same bug, because the symptoms are similar.
Just always report new bugs, and the world will be better for it. :)

> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Dave Morley <davmor2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
> wrote:
> > That wouldn't work, most commercial vendors won't know anything about
> > LP won't care about LP and certainly won't use it.
> 
>  From what I can see in the Android store, for example, getting lots of 
> good reviews is paramount.  Why wouldn't vendors take advantage of a 
> system that allows them to shunt poor reviews (i.e. bug reports) into a 
> different silo where most people won't see them?

They would. But LP is not that thing. LP is way too complex to simply be
a silo where one shoves bug reports. If they want to do it that way,
they can, but most vendors won't want to do so. They will either have
something they already use, or prefer something embedded into the store
experience.

> > The homepage/contact url in the app details page should be sufficient
> 
> As I've just argued, it isn't.  We already have a problem, and the only 
> users are those with the technical ability to install a new OS on their 
> phone.  It's only going to get worse once actual Ubuntu devices go on 
> sale.

Indeed it is not optimal. But right now, it is all we have.

> What do other app developers think?  Am I the only one having this 
> problem?

No, you aren't.

The reviews system for click packages is just a separate API endpoint on
top of the existing software-center reviews system, to make things
slightly better for the app install flow in the scope. It's not really
optimal for either the click flow, or the software-center flow,
unfortunately. It is something that could probably be improved and fixed
to solve all these problems over time, but that will take time. I don't
think there is any good short-term or immediate solution to the problem
you've presented in your mail.