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~~Ned Scott~~ · 2016-08-26, 02:54

I keep putting off starting this thread, because I honestly want this idea to go forward without causing drama. If anything, it is my hope that it can help prevent some arguments and provide occasional distance for a small handful of situations. This is an idea that is hard to propose without it being taken the wrong way by some people. My own conflicts with some people don't help that, and I only have myself to blame for that.

If at all possible, I hope that people will look at this idea/repo as an honest and sincere attempt to compliment, but not complete, with the official Kodi add-on repo.

TL;DR - let's get this thing started.

~~Ned Scott~~ · (This post was last modified: 2016-08-26, 03:01 by Ned Scott.)

The basic concept:

(2016-08-20, 16:55)Ned Scott Wrote: Would you be interested in joining others who are, for various reasons, are also not in the official repo? All legal stuff, of course. An idea has been tossed around about a shared repo of legal/legit, but unofficial, add-ons, to make it easier for users to find them without having to add a lot of other repos.

(2016-08-20, 17:44)Ned Scott Wrote: The basic idea (so far) is to only include just a few things that don't normally fit in the official repo. Like:

Skin mods (skin mods not allowed in official)

Add-ons that write to databases (another no no) like the Plex and Emby add-ons.

Advanced add-ons that might be too "dangerous" for new users to see in the default repo. For example, something that helped people modify advandedsetings.xml stuff in a GUI.

Then lastly, add-ons that would otherwise go in the official repo, but aren't, due to "other". The idea bring, add-on authors would be strongly encouraged to try to be in the official repo, as to not compete with it. Exceptions would be made for situations like yourself (and a few others I can think of).

Maybe a modified rule set that is based on the official repo rules.

It's really just an idea at this point, so nothing is set in stone. I would also like to see a collective repo that isn't on the banned add-on list ;)

I want to put major emphasis that this is not and will never be a "free for all" or "anything goes" repo. Add-ons that turn out to be a major issue/cause damage/whatever won't be accepted (or dropped, if already accepted). The only way for this to work is for there to be a reasonable vetting process.

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2016-08-26, 03:03

Tentative name: There Be Dragons Add-on Repo ;)

(open to other suggestions)

**zag** · (This post was last modified: 2016-08-26, 10:21 by zag.)

I'd be interested in helping with this as i'm sad to see people outside of our ecosystem who are responsible devs.

I've also always wanted to provide an easy way for devs to submit an add-on without github or mailing list hurdles.

It might have to be independent of Team Kodi, but I will look into it including a web front end and backend solution for developers Wink

with a working 3rd party Kodi repository.

**Dangelus** · 2016-08-26, 10:49

Love this idea. It will make it much easier for the community to point new users to well respected add-ons and devs as well instead of having them scour individual threads on the forums.

**bry** · 2016-08-26, 11:25

Agreed. Hopefully this pans out

**tadly** · 2016-08-26, 13:18

+1

@zag you'll be done with that by next week right? Smile

~~robwebset~~ · 2016-08-26, 16:21

(2016-08-26, 03:03)Ned Scott Wrote: Tentative name: There Be Dragons Add-on Repo

(open to other suggestions)

What about "Trusted Developer Repo" - where the users that add to the repo are "vetted" and deemed to be trust-worthy. And the main description highlights the only developers that are allowed into the repository? (This would remove the free-for-all approach) Then each developer that has been approved is deemed trust worthy enough to highlight anything they think they may be doing as a bit dodgy!

Maybe a breakdown for the author and their addons, maybe even highlighting for each addon why it's not in the official repository. (So for most of mine will just be "fed up with the painful submissions" - then the remainder would detail the actual reason it wouldn't get into the official repository)

Rob

trogggy · 2016-08-26, 16:30

How about a 2-tier system...

Rob's 'trusted developer repo' and then another section, maybe your 'Here be dragons'? - with some bigger warnings - that just hosts 'legal' (ie not infringing the rules here) repos.
That gives a list of non-infringing repos that can be pointed to if someone asks, it saves (me!) finding, downloading and saving zip files outside kodi if someone wants to install 3rd party stuff - and if anything is found to break the rules it can be easily dropped from the list.

jmh2002 · (This post was last modified: 2016-08-26, 20:45 by jmh2002.)

Yeah, I wanted to post this earlier but I think that the "There be Dragons" name kind of defeats the point.
None of the addons being referred to fit that criteria and I think that it would be a disservice to their developers to paint them in that light.

Plus there are already plenty of real 3rd party repos in use that cater to the addons that really do meet with serious disapproval here.

I think the name should definitely be something like "Trusted Repo", "Reliable Repo", "Respected Repo", etc, to achieve the suggested goal.

As trogggy mentioned, perhaps some type of advanced section might be useful, although maybe ultimately it's not necessary to be so complicated since any alternative repo should already be considered "advanced" for the average user, and other addons which might truly be for advanced/experienced/experimental users maybe still wont fit the criteria for the suggested goals of this repo anyway.

My 2 centimes...

**xnappo** · 2016-08-27, 05:50

My preference would still be 'Advanced User Repo'.

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2016-08-27, 06:12

(2016-08-26, 10:20)zag Wrote: I'd be interested in helping with this as i'm sad to see people outside of our ecosystem who are responsible devs.

I've also always wanted to provide an easy way for devs to submit an add-on without github or mailing list hurdles.

It might have to be independent of Team Kodi, but I will look into it including a web front end and backend solution for developers with a working 3rd party Kodi repository.

That sounds great. We don't really need anything fancy to get started, but I'm all for the web front end idea.

~~Ned Scott~~ · (This post was last modified: 2016-08-27, 06:16 by Ned Scott.)

(2016-08-26, 16:21)robwebset Wrote:
(2016-08-26, 03:03)Ned Scott Wrote: Tentative name: There Be Dragons Add-on Repo

(open to other suggestions)

What about "Trusted Developer Repo" - where the users that add to the repo are "vetted" and deemed to be trust-worthy. And the main description highlights the only developers that are allowed into the repository? (This would remove the free-for-all approach) Then each developer that has been approved is deemed trust worthy enough to highlight anything they think they may be doing as a bit dodgy!

Maybe a breakdown for the author and their addons, maybe even highlighting for each addon why it's not in the official repository. (So for most of mine will just be "fed up with the painful submissions" - then the remainder would detail the actual reason it wouldn't get into the official repository)

Rob

Defenetely. Such add-on devs could even push updates to their add-ons (or new add-ons) without delay.

cd2022 · 2016-08-27, 06:19

With all due respect, "There Be Dragons" is Ned's word play on To Be Determined.

~~robwebset~~ · 2016-08-27, 07:19

(2016-08-27, 05:50)xnappo Wrote: My preference would still be 'Advanced User Repo'.

My concern with this name is that it makes it sound like the user needs to be advanced in order to use the addons - which I do not believe will be the case for all the addons in the repo.

Rob