On 01/25/2014 05:08 AM, Richard Hughes wrote:

I can think
of several programs that I use daily that are simple enough so that there's
not much development happening to them. For example,  the 'units' program,
which I showed  recently to some mechanical engineers who use Linux and they
went 'OMG this is so cool, how come we didn't know about it even though
we've been using Linux for ten years'.

Right. If it's a GUI application, and is indeed awesome, I'd hope that
the Fedora packager could write an AppData file, take some
screenshots, include it as a source in the RPM and build a new version
of the package. This way is a workaround for an abandoned-upstream but
awesome/complete package.

There are two separate issues here: 'abandonment', and 'GUIness'. As to the latter, I think it's a mistake to have a primary application installation tool that only deals with GUI apps, because it relegates text-based tools, such as 'units', to a second-class status of being hard to find and to install. Similarly, at least some apps with inactive upstream are fine the way they are and do not deserve to be locked up in the attic.

The real distinction lies somewhere else: everyone agrees that we should promote excellent and useful apps, while deprecating the deficient ones. Neither GUIness nor the speed of current development is an accurate measure of that; I believe that user feedback, a la Google App Store's user ranking, is the only reasonable way to classify the apps for promotion and visibility.