[QGIS-Developer] Maintainance of QGIS Plugin repository

[Julien Cabieces]

Hi Admire,

Thank for your work, I agree with all of your proposals.

I think there are also a few things that could be automated:
- Check for binary files
- Check for very long plugin names (like [0])
- Check for python/QGIS 2 plugins
- Check that issue tracker url exists
- ...


It would also be interesting to trigger the existing approval automated checks on
the actual plugins set, to see if it fits the new requirements (I think
about the recent license check for instance).

[0]
https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/transfer_layerfilegdb_to_geopackage/#plugin-versions

Regards,
Julien


> Hi All
>
> I help out in the approval process of QGIS plugins. There are various issues that are listed  https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Django/issues to
> streamline the approval process of plugins.
>
> Over the years there has been a steady increase in plugins that are not approved. This is due to a number of reasons:
>
> * Duplication of functionality. Plugin functionality already exists in QGIS.
>
> * Plugin authors not willing to address issues raised during the approval process.
>
> * Plugins containing binaries (Not really sure about the policy here).
>
> * Plugins which are a fork of an existing plugin and then they get renamed to something else without permission from the original author or
> the author is no longer interested i.e https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/active_fire2/.
>
> * Old plugins that still use the old architecture i.e Python2.
>
> Could we either implement the following changes to maintain/cleanup the plugin repository.
>
> * Old plugins that were never approved because the author did not care to resolve issues flagged be deleted from the repository i.e
> https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/ban_adresse_locator/
>
> * Plugins that have vague names and offer functionality that is ambiguious i.e https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/upload/ be deleted.
>
> * We could automate the deletion of plugins where feedback has been received but the author hasn't done any corrective measure maybe
> after a month or couple of months. 
>
> * Automatically flag the plugins which are not approved to Deprecated after some time. 
>
> I think the above and other recommendations will encourage people to use the plugin repository properly as currently it feels like a dumping
> ground.
>
> On a side note: What is the policy for plugin names. I know it is up to the author to give his plugin a suitable name but something like
> https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/transfer_layerfilegdb_to_geopackage/#plugin-versions looks like a description rather than a name.
>
> Regards
>
> Adire


-- 

Julien Cabieces
Senior Developer at Oslandia
julien.cabieces at oslandia.com