[Qgis-developer] The new QGIS plugin repo

[Paolo Cavallini]

Il 05/07/2010 08:49, Paolo Cavallini ha scritto:
> Il 02/07/2010 13:50, Carson Farmer ha scritto:
> 
>> Maybe this is simply too much work at this stage, but I'd like us to
>> also consider other options...
> 
> I think that we need:
> - a trac for plugin bugs - currently there is no reliable way to point out bugs and
> issues, to know which one was fixed, etc.
> - a way to cooperate on plugins: there are easy fix and improvements that cannot be
> applied because in the current structure only the owner of the plugin can; as a
> result, several forking has already occurred (which is bad both for devs and for users).

Any further thoughts about this? I still think this is an important issue for the
future of QGIS, and the sooner we deal effectively with it the better.
I agree we should encourage, not discourage, individual contributions. On the other
hand, we should make it easier to collaborate on the development and bugfixing of
individual plugins.
I see two choices here:
- keeping the existing system, and create a script to sync the uploaded plugin to an
ad hoc svn+trac: no impact on contributors, but we keep the possibility of fixing the
plugins when needed, arranging them in menus and submenus, open tickets, etc.
- replacing the current system with a different one, possibly with the seme or
similar interface, that loads the plugin directly on the above mentioned svn+trac.
Of course contributors can always add their repo at will: Our system should be in
place just to help collaborating, not to force anyone.
I'm sure there are other (better) options, and I'm looking forward for other suggestions.

At the same time, a system for:
- counting the number of downloads
- giving a rank
- sharing comments
- sorting by popularity, number of downloads, date
- tagging and searching
is something useful, and everybody is expect such a system (see eg the FireFox
addons: https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/).

All the best.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc