[Development] The future of the "Ministro" brand on Android (was: Proposal: Adding a repository in Qt Project for the Ministro tool, needed by Qt for Android)

[BogDan]

>>>  Hi,
>>> 
>>>  As part of the Android-port of Qt 5 being contributed to the Qt 
>>>  Project by BogDan, he also contributed the code for a general-purpose 
>>>  Android app which is used for getting libraries and plugins on demand 
>>>  when a Qt app is deployed to an Android device. This tool is called 
> "Ministro".
>>> 
>>>  We need a repository to put it in, and the existing repositories do 
>>>  not seem to fit, so I'm proposing making a new repository for this:
>>>  ministro/ministro
>> 
>>  I certainly don't mind adding the repository but I presume there will 
> be a branding change once the Android port is made official. While 
> "Neccessitas" and "Ministro" sounds cool, I think it would 
> be better if we stop using those names officially and start to refer to them 
> just as "Qt for Android" and "Qt Library Installer" or 
> something similar and clear.
>> 
>>  I think people get a bit worried when they have to install something called 
> "Ministro" on their phones. At least I was rather concerned the first 
> time I installed a Qt app on my device and had to check twice. Perhaps we should 
> name the repository accordingly?
>> 
>>  Regards,
>>  Jens
> On Jan 12, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Abrahamsen-Blomfeldt Eskil 
> <Eskil.Abrahamsen-Blomfeldt at digia.com> wrote:
> 
>>  Hi,
>> 
>>  I think there will have to be further discussion around this. Ministro was 
> initially written to be a common-purpose library distribution, not exclusively 
> used for Qt libraries. It would be like depending on "apt" or 
> something like that. More discussion is needed to decide how to proceed with 
> this, I think.
>> 
>>  However, regardless of the outcome there, I don't think there's any 
> problem branding the technology which distributes and shares the libraries as 
> "Ministro". What name is used for distributing the app in app stores 
> can be unrelated to the name of the technology which is only used in the code. 
> So, like Alan said, I don't think this issue has to be resolved before the 
> code is integrated in the Qt Project.
>> 
>>  I think we need to make start off by making the binding-code for a Qt app 
> generic enough that it can be configured to connect to a Ministro-based app with 
> any name/app identifier. This way, we can do any necessary rebranding or other 
> changes at a later stage when all opinions are heard.
>> 
>>  The idea from there is to try to make the Ministro-app in the app store 
> owned by a Qt Project-user, but how this would work legally is currently a bit 
> unclear. If it turns out it's impossible, then we might need to make Qt 
> Creator's Android-plugin Ministro-app-agnostic, Digia will make a 
> Digia-owned distribution of Qt which can be selected in Qt Creator, but also 
> allow developers to connect to the current Ministro app or their own, custom 
> distribution of Qt if they so wish.
>> 
>>  As for the name of the app: For the end-user of the app, I think it makes 
> little difference whether the external app they have to download is called 
> "Ministro" or "Qt". Either will most likely be a name 
> they've never heard before. "Qt" might actually sound scarier to 
> the average end-user than "Ministro" if you think about it :) If the 
> app is exclusively used for Qt libraries, it should be named Qt, though, but if 
> it's a general-purpose distribution mechanism, I think "Ministro" 
> is a good name. I do think the main issue for many people will be the fact that 
> you have to download a separate app to start the app you just downloaded, 
> regardless of its name. I am worried that this will give developers an extra 
> argument to use regular Android APIs for their app rather than Qt. Ideally, you 
> should have to accept as few compromises as possible when using Qt for your app.
>> 
>>  -- Eskil
> 
> 
> Thanks for clarifying. I believe the time is right to bring up this topic as we 
> are just about to merge Ministro into the now official Qt for android port but I 
> chose the wrong topic to bring it up in. Hence I have renamed the thread.
> 
> Consider this my +1 to naming the new repository "ministro/ministro".
> 
> That said, I am not sure I am entirely ok with this. I would like a single 
> repository for quality tested Qt libraries and not an arbitrary collection of 
> open source libraries of various quality that any application could pull in. I 
> want to be certain that the only thing users will get when they see that 
> installer screen is a quality tested Qt package.
> 
> If Ministro is not that tool, then perhaps qt-project should make a new official 
> application under a different name that does this and only this. Ministro can of 
> course live alongside with it and be an alternative to more adventurous users. 
> Perhaps a separate repository is needed to distribute the commercial version of 
> the libraries anyway?
> 
> I disagree that it does not matter if the app is branded "Qt" or 
> "Ministro". The goal of this project is to increase awareness and 
> usage of Qt. If Qt on Android becomes big and uses a name like 
> "Ministro" to distribute the library, we will loose an opportunity to 
> attract new developers to the platform. What if we need a similar tool on IOS? 
> Will we give that yet another name? 
> 
> The time of "java" and "flash" is about to run out, but even 
> my mother has a vague idea what those are and why she has to accept those 
> security updates because so many applications depend on them. At the moment 
> users might perhaps not be able to tell the difference between 
> "Ministro" and "Qt library installer" on the app store but 
> when all their cool applications start to use it they might.
> 
> And even if we for some reason do not int the end want to push the Qt brand with 
> the installer, I think we should at least reconsider the implications of the 
> brand now that we have the opportunity. I am not a native english speaker but 
> Ministro sounds unnecessarily foreign to me. Perhaps something trendy or more 
> developer friendly like "LibKit" or "Library Store" would 
> do.
> 
> Regards,
> Jens

Hi,


  What makes you think that e.g. my mother (or any non-developer user) will find
a tool named "Qt installer" more trustful name than "Minstro"? Most probably
she will think that this tool was named by R2-D2/C-3PO, not by human beings ...

  Supposing that you never heard words like: "google", "adobe", "ubuntu", "digia", 
"microsoft", "apple", "debian", "android", "red hat", etc. do you think that these
names sounds less "cool" and more professional than "ministro"? At least the word 
"ministro" has a meaning very related to what it is suppose to do:
http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookit.pl?latin=Ministro

   Ministro was downloaded by +3.3M users and AFAIK nobody complaind about its
name, most of the complains comes from the fact that this tools must download a
few +25Mb of data, which for some users was unacceptable.

   As Eskil already pointed, Ministro will not be use only to distribute Qt libs but is
designed to be a general-proposed distribution tool, and starting with the next 
version more projects will be able to use it to distribute their own libs, including
Digia may use it to distribute their commercial Qt (I don't know if there will be a 
commercial SDK for Android, I just wanted to point the fact that Ministro can be 
used for that job).

You don't have to worry about testing the Qt repository because your application 
will specify what repos it needs to access, if your application will specify only the
qt repos, than only the needed qt libs will be downloaded and your application
access only these libs, but if you need other libs (e.g OpenCV libs) then you need
to add OpenCV repo your application repos list.

  Currently Ministro's repo is hosted by KDE, I accepted to move it to a qt-project
repo because Eskil was worried about the potential contributors (currently I'm the
only developer) which will need to sign the CLA, which on KDE is not possible. 
Anyway, if you'll will find unacceptable to use such a name for Qt, then I'll continue
its development under KDE. But IMHO forking Ministro to become a Qt only
distribution system just because some people don't like its name is childish, is like
forking "angle" just to rename it as "qt windows  opengl" because its name doesn't
contain "Qt", "windows" and "opengl" in it ...

  What stuns me is the fact that there are just a few months until Qt 5.1 release and
instead of talking about how to collaborate better to have at least a "beta" port in
time for Qt 5.1, or about Ministro's missing features and how to improve it, or about
new technologies that will help Qt on Android, we've start to talk about Ministro's 
name and how to fork it ... 

  With all due respect, I think that there are more important things to discuss than
the distribution tool name, e.g. on which modules we are working, and which ones
are the most important and should be ready for Qt5.

Cheers,
BogDan.