Yea, but I preferably don’t want to have to lookup a website for every plugin 
if somebody gives me a list of plugins to install.

If you have plugins, there will generally be a few categories:

1)      The ones that only use Python

2)      The ones that use Python and custom python modules, or native binaries

3)      The ones that use Python R/Java/.NET/C/C++/Ruby/Whatever


Now 1) goes into all platforms, everything else into a platform repository, 
because it anyway has to. (JRE in the proper version is not necessarely 
installed)
And done. No metadata necessary.

Since the QGIS maintainers know for which platforms they compile QGIS, that 
limits the list of necessary platform repositories.
If a third-party wants to support another platform, they can make their own 
repo.
If it gets traction, it can be added to the main, if not, then it’s good the 
way it is.

Anyway, since there might be native dependencies, the whole thing would belong 
into apt/yum/pacman/whatever in the first place, because that is where package 
management happens, and plugin management is exactly that.
If I want to update qgis to the latest version, I should at the very least get 
warnings if plugin X is not ready – and I should get that warning the moment I 
want to update qgis.
Which is why it would belong into the package manager.


Von: Matthias Kuhn [mailto:matth...@opengis.ch]
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 6. Februar 2019 17:46
An: Stefan Steiger <stei...@cor-management.ch>; C Hamilton 
<adenacult...@gmail.com>
Cc: qgis-dev <qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org>
Betreff: Re: [QGIS-Developer] Windows only version of a QGIS 2.18x plugin


Hi
On 2/6/19 5:28 PM, Stefan Steiger wrote:

The problem with metadata is that if you use it, you have no way to easily know 
if something (a  group of plugins) uses a platform-specific plugin.

For example, in ubuntu, I can choose:

-          Official  (secure)

-          Universe (insecure/half-legal)

-          Partner (copyrighted/patented)

-          and of course custom repos

So if somebody or some tutorial tells me to add the « universe » repo, I know 
instantly not to do that on a server or in a security-critical situation.

If it instead would tell me to install package x, which then installs 20 other 
packages, which then each install more packages – how do I even filter that 
information if I have per-package metadata ?  I wouldn’t even use metadata for 
that, because something might run on Linux, but not on your specific version, 
for example ARM processor on Linux Chromebook. You’ll have to subdivide by 
processor for binaries.  Plugins can depend on other plugins.

It might be even better to have 5 repositories:
All-platforms, Windows-only, Linux-Only, Mac-Only, Rest-of-the-world
So if your plugin works on Windows and Linux, you just upload it to the 2 
repositories, and finished.

If somebody then tells me to add a „windows only“ plugin, I know to steer clear 
of that shit if I use Linux, and vice-versa.
And that without having to lookup metadata.



I agree that if we want to have plugins sorted by their legality or other 
somehow dubious practices, separate repositories are a good way to go.

Plugins which only support a subset of possible platforms are in no way more 
nor less critical than any other plugin which claims to support all platforms.

The metadata we talk about here is not something to lookup by people on a 
regular basis, but for

- the plugin manager to check if it's suitable for the current platoform (i.e. 
it will not even offer me to install it on my Linux machine), just like Ubuntu 
won't even offer arm packages if it's running on a x86_64 machine.

- general information purpose on the plugin website

Matthias
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