Taking over apps in Harbour

If these apps are not maintained, then of course one could ask permission to take apps over and build for 64-bit architecture and submit to Harbour.

There is a way howto take over app in Harbour? How? Should I ping you in group chat with current developer?

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I too had thought about that. Some apps, like Fahrplan, I had thought to get back into harbour, but couldn’t be bothered with the name change.

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Isn’t that a task for Jolla? To remove obsolete apps?
Maybe a topic for a coming Community meeting?
Anyway, I agree It’s a good thought.

Sorry, but I’m to old to chat. Meeting would be over before I’ve finished typing. :wink:

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Well, they can’t really know if they are obsolete. The old Fahrplan in harbour probably works fine (for some providers) on 3.4 devices, for instance. I haven’t been able to contact the original maint (smurfy) for ages so …

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I can imagine that some people still run old SFOS versions on their phones for some reasons, and for this people it’s fine that the old ‘obsolete’ apps still are available at the jolla store. So please let them where they are, it disturbs nobody and it blocks nothing if they are on the server.

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Well, it does mean they won’t get fixes which are quite a few in case of Fahrplan. Since I provide all builds, those would run on 3.4 since there are no newer dependencies.

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Well, if users install (partially) dysfunctioning apps, that degrades their experience and increases the time needed to find a suitable app. I recently had that myself when searching for a currency exchange rate app.

When apps don’t work anymore and the maintainer does not react in a reasonable time frame, I think it helps everyone to suspend these apps from the Store (until fixed).

Other than that, I agree that kicking apps out of the Store can have some negative consequences too.

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You are as always doing a great job, maintaining all the apps you took under your wings.
My concern only covers the apps that are totally abandoned, and they’re starting to become quite numerous. Of course, I do not claim that I have any solution. I just want to start an exchange of thoughts on the issue.
The only way to a functional solution in my opinion.

Yes. Some cleaning would help to see clearer while browsing/searching apps.
But your evocation of poetaster taking apps under his wings makes me realize it would be a good thing to keep these obsolete app clearly visible somewhere, in case someone wants to bring one back alive.

Right, but how to do it?

Edit:
Guess we are way OT. Maybe @admin can move this to new thread?

There are a couple of parallel efforts ongoing. When I started this one:

my focus was on contacting devs and seeing what could be done. The main effort being to get them into chum as that became available. Those were not all harbour apps but some cross section.

In addition a growing number of things have been making their way to SailfishOS:Chum community · GitHub with @olf and @nephros also pushing in that direction. I haven’t done much (a couple of things, but should do more) and that has the advantage that resurrected apps would be under a larger umbrella org and hence more likely to find some level of support. So, where we can get to source, if the developer is not available, the strategy is to get the apps under the shared umbrella and at least make them available in chum. I’d go further and produce for harbour where possible.

There are currently 3 apps in my harbour queue that are blocked by existing old versions. Fahrplan SailDBmeter and Paint. All are available on chum and / or openrepos but for it would be nice to update the versions in harbour.

In the end, it’s mostly a communication issue. Someone has to contact, if possible, original devs and see if an app/maintenance of said can be handed over in coordination with Jolla.

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