Packaging third-party applications (Was: Meta Toolchain Release (2008 May))

[Rod Whitby]

Pranav Desai wrote:
> My attempt is to make existing opensource apps available for Openmoko.
> If I have rewrite or wrap around the existing build process just to
> fit the OE model then it seems a bit discouraging.

Contrast this with Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc ... you're effectively 
saying that Debian repositories with GPG signed packages are not 
required - you are saying that people should just download random 
binaries from random sites and take the consequences, or they should be 
smart enough to build the packages themselves.

> Maybe its trivial to include apps into OE, but currently it seems more
> than that to me.  And especially, with the toolchain out, it seems even
> more easier to build apps as-is and just putting out the binaries for
> people to use.

And therein starts the decline of Openmoko application availability into 
the poor practices of the windows world ... encouraging people to 
download and install binary applications with no means of determining 
exactly how they were built (and therefore not able to verify that 
something bad hasn't been included in them).

I thought the Openmoko developer community would want to better than 
that ...

-- Rod