Verify RDNN's outside of GitHub [$30]

Apps have to have a reverse-domain ID, as per the fd.o spec. However, AppCenter requires that that reverse ID is com.github.myusername.appname. Quite apart from how this makes not a lot of sense if/when AppCenter starts supporting other non-github stores (gitlab, etc), it means that I can’t ever move my app off github even if AppCenter does support other stores. And, more importantly, my app’s ID is my domain, not github. Github just happens to be a place where it’s currently pushed to so that AppCenter can get hold of it. There shouldn’t be any technical problem here; the app ID doesn’t need to agree with the repository URL, it just needs to be unique and mine and “a valid D-Bus well-known bus name”. Indeed, if anything, that name should probably agree with that which is passed to Gtk.Application.new() in the app itself, which for almost everyone isn’t com.github.anything.

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[stuartlangridge]

But where the code is hosted isn’t relevant to the app’s identity. At some point you will start supporting, say, gitlab, or a passed git url of my choice. At that point, I start supplying my app’s gitlab or bitbucket URL, and I have to change the ID, which breaks upgrades! Making my app’s globally unique ID depend on which of its five git URLs I happened to give you is like making my app’s ID depend on which day I started writing it on. If I change my github username: I break upgrades for all my elementary apps. If I rename the repository: I break upgrades for that app. If I host it somewhere else: I break upgrades for that app. Perhaps you think that’s a reasonable thing to do: that I should choose right now where this app will be hosted for its whole entire life. But you’ve already decided to move half the elementary project from launchpad to github and for god reasons; don’t we want to give developers that same choice? Not lock them to this URL forever just because it’s all you support right now?

[btkostner]

Just to keep you guys informed: The soon to be released v2 worker fully supports customized names. This will let you use houston ci for testing apps on travis. Once v2 version of the web interface is setup you will be able to change the name in houston and release apps with custom domains and names.