Patch pointing "our apps" to apps.fp.o/packages rather than pkgdb.
0001-Modify-the-our-apps-link-to-point-to-apps.fp.o-packa.patch

We had the link to apps.fp.o/packages before and people were not able to find what they are searching for, we had also some reports asking why there is no package list and just a search form (and indeed the description says "across 10,000+ packages").

Before changing it to the actual page we asked for a better link, and that's what we got. IMO the pkgdb link is nice, there is a real "list" of packages and people don't have to search for a package, because they often don't know exactly how its name is.

Replying to [comment:1 robyduck]:

We had the link to apps.fp.o/packages before and people were not able to find what they are searching for, we had also some reports asking why there is no package list and just a search form (and indeed the description says "across 10,000+ packages").

Before changing it to the actual page we asked for a better link, and that's what we got. IMO the pkgdb link is nice, there is a real "list" of packages and people don't have to search for a package, because they often don't know exactly how its name is.

Uhm, the pkgdb search box '''only''' works if you know what the package name is. There's no other way of searching for your package.

Wouldn't it be better to file bugs against "packages" and get these issues that you mention fixed, rather than sending people to pkgdb? For example:

• request apps.fp.o/packages to add a link "List of all Fedora packages by name" that links to pkgdb
• package XYZ not showing up (These are generally caused by infra issues when the db didn't sync properly).

For example, take Geoff's case: He searched for "editor" on pkgdb and as expected, he found neither vim nor emacs.. Considering they're the top two editors in FOSS land, that's a really bad result from a user perspective IMHO.

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/list/?searchwords=editor

Pkgdb is really meant for maintainers only. Users are not expected to be maintainers. If someone is well versed with fedora enough to know that pgkdb exists, they don't need a link via fp.o to get there. The link on fp.o is under features, and I'd think that the targeted audience here are end users that do not know about the internals of Fedora.

If you check the app graph infra maintains at http://apps.fedoraproject.org/, you'll see that pkgdb is listed under "for packagers", not "for community".

What do you think? I can file bugs etc. against "packages" and help infra with them.

Ankur, I get your point and I agree with you. The last report of a failed search is going also in that direction.

What I wanted to say is that the search form is not what some users expect. In the past there were users reporting why they don't see any list of packages they could look at, but only a search form.

I know app.fpo points the actual link out as "maintainer link", but this was exactly what people were looking for, until a few days ago... [[BR]]
If you want us to be consistent and follow the app.fpo then let's modify it again. I'm fine with it, but I don't want to jump from one link to the other every x months. What would you answer if someone says "hey, I expected a list of all Fedora packages there, where can I find it?" I guess you will link to pkgdb, won't you?

I hope you get my concern here too, so are you still convinced linking to apps.fp.o/packages is the better solution? If yes I'm glad to apply your patch.

Replying to [comment:3 robyduck]:

Ankur, I get your point and I agree with you. The last report of a failed search is going also in that direction.

What I wanted to say is that the search form is not what some users expect. In the past there were users reporting why they don't see any list of packages they could look at, but only a search form.

I know app.fpo points the actual link out as "maintainer link", but this was exactly what people were looking for, until a few days ago... [[BR]]
If you want us to be consistent and follow the app.fpo then let's modify it again. I'm fine with it, but I don't want to jump from one link to the other every x months. What would you answer if someone says "hey, I expected a list of all Fedora packages there, where can I find it?" I guess you will link to pkgdb, won't you?

I hope you get my concern here too, so are you still convinced linking to apps.fp.o/packages is the better solution? If yes I'm glad to apply your patch.

I understand what you're saying, yes. Let's not hurry into a decision. I'll go talk to the infra folks who are upstream for packages and see what they have to say about the issue.

Thanks,
Ankur

We won't have any reference on the new webpages, for now. Please reopen for the community websites we still need to write...