buy-something team mailing list archive

[Rick Spencer <rick.spencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 19:32 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
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> Today, for the first time, I successfully completed the software
> purchase process from start to finish.
> 
> It's still ugly and impolite. This is important. We who are involved in
> this project are, justifiably, impressed at all the moving parts we have
> managed to plug together. But the simple truth is that
> *no-one outside the company will be*. They are used to an Internet where
> Amazon, iTunes, and tens of thousands of other stores sell things
> elegantly and (mostly) without fuss, and we'll be compared to them.
I disagree that "no one" will be impressed. We are the only Linux distro
that has anything like this. While it is not yet perfected, it is
totally new and ground-breaking for a FLOSS project to offer this. I
think we will be compared to 10.04 and other distros that have no store
front functionality.

> 
> In e-commerce, people have few ways to judge whether to trust a
> storefront with their money: these include branding, aesthetics,
> understandability, and responsiveness. We're making progress, but for
> all of these things we have a *lot* to fix.

Correct. And this will take a sustained effort over multiple releases. 

But note that we are not Apple or Amazon. We are Ubuntu. We are a
community distro, and  we do things our way. For example, we ship every
6 months on schedule, we get feedback from users and the community, and
we respond to it in the next release.

Our goal for Maverick was not to finish everything we wanted the store
to be, but to allow users to "buy something." The result of this effort
is that we have the "moving parts" plugged together, and we can go on to
polish and build features based on this effort. So we've met our goal,
and in fact, exceeded it in some areas.

We *are* releasing on October 10th, 2010. Final Freeze is 3 days away,
September 16th. That means that we have precious little time to address
one or two of these issues on the client, after that there will be only
time for fixing critical bugs. I suppose that server side issues can be
addressed in an ongoing manner.

Cheers, Rick

> 
> Screencast:
> <http://people.canonical.com/~mpt/usc-purchase-2010-09-13.ogv>
> (It doesn't play in Chromium for me, but does in Firefox.)
> 
> This screencast is longer than usual, because I tried four things:
> 1.  what happens if you choose "Reinstall Previous Purchases" out of
>     curiosity
> 2.  purchasing Fluendo DVD Player
> 3.  removing the purchased item
> 4.  reinstalling the purchase using "Reinstall Previous Purchases".
> 
> Seven of the problems I found last time have been fixed:
> >...
> > 0:39  "Connecting to payment service..." is big and clunky.
> >       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/622727>
> >...
> > 1:53  The payment page layout is wonky.
> >       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625274>
> >...
> > 2:50  The terms of service window can now be scrolled and closed, but
> >       it is still stuck underneath the payments window.
> >       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625398>
> >...
> > 3:27  If you make an error near the bottom of the payment form, you're
> >       returned to the top of the form with no visible explanation.
> >       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625405>
> >...
> > 3:56  An authentication alert appears, bewilderingly asking me "To
> >       change repository settings". (To be fair, I did write that
> >       string, but I wasn't expecting it to show up in this context.)
> >       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/631619>
> >
> > 4:08  An "In Progress" item appears briefly, but the software item
> >       screen continues saying "Installing purchase..." indefinitely.
> >
> > 4:59  The item is not installed.
> 
> These are the problems I encountered this time (13 of them are new):
> 
> 0:20  The "Connect to Ubuntu Software Center Store" dialog says "Connect
>       to Ubuntu Software Center Store", "Connect to Ubuntu Software
>       Center Store" a second time, and then "Ubuntu Software Centre",
>       apparently to demonstrate that we can spell it two ways. But
>       nowhere does it explain why the dialog is asking me to sign in.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/624097>
> 
> 0:20  The "Connect to Ubuntu Software Center Store" dialog does not
>       focus the first field by default.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637205>
> 
> 0:29  Signing in displays an error: "Required argument 'password' (pos
>       2) not found".
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/634465>
> 
> 0:47  The item for purchase has no description, screenshot, version,
>       license, or updates information.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625254>
> 
> 0:51  The purchase process opens in a separate window.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/618817>
> 
> 0:51  The Ubuntu Single Sign On screen refers to "Software Center"
>       instead of "Ubuntu Software Center".
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/631567>
> 
> 1:00  Clicking "Cancel" results in a great white empty window with the
>       unhelpful message "OpenID failed".
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637231>
> 
> 1:19  The Ubuntu Single Sign On screen has a missing image next to
>       "Choose your language".
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/635028>
> 
> 1:28  The payment screen looks like a Web page and wastes a lot of
>       space.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637451>
> 
> 1:30  "Quantity" and "Total" are shown, when it's impossible to buy more
>       than one thing at a time.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625261>
> 
> 2:40  The "I agree to the Terms of Service" checkbox label is in the
>       wrong place.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637266>
> 
> 2:45  The supposed terms of service are actually a Web page about
>       "www.blah.net Spam Filtering".
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625389>
> 
> 3:18  If left unchecked, the terms of service checkbox has the error
>       message "This field is required".
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637292>
> 
> 3:35  The payment confirmation screen refers to my "country code" rather
>       than my country.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625415>
> 
> 3:46  The payment progress is shown in unattractive unstyled unmoving
>       HTML.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/632499>
> 
> 3:48  The text says "Launchpad subscription created successfully".
> 
> 4:01  After authenticating, the software item screen says "Installing
>       purchase...", but it is 42 seconds until a progress bar appears
>       next to it. (This bug is obscured in the screencast by a missing
>       keyframe.)
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637377>
> 
> 4:13  In "In Progress", the purchase installation has no icon or name.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637394>
> 
> 4:27  (A non-purchasing bug. <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637411>)
> 
> 5:03  The description of Fluendo DVD Player is badly written
>       (e.g. "reproduce DVD", "Linux/Unix", and no fewer than *eight*
>       occurrences of the nonsense-word "support") and badly formatted.
>       (E-mailed to Roz Strachan and Brian Thomason to fix. Brian has
>       already fixed the formatting.)
> 
> 5:13  When installation is finished, the launch location does not show
>       up like it does for other installed items.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637452>
> 
> 5:44  (A non-purchasing bug. <http://launchpad.net/bugs/625443>)
> 
> 6:15  After choosing "Reinstall Previous Purchases" and entering Ubuntu
>       Single Sign-On details correctly, the dialog says "Authentication
>       failed."
> 
> - -:--  After installation, Fluendo DVD Player does not appear in the
>       installation history.
>       <http://launchpad.net/bugs/637088>
> 
> Major areas I have not yet tested:
> *   Whether the SSO registration process makes sense.
> *   Reinstalling previous purchases (because I couldn't sign in).
> *   What happens at each point if I lose my Internet connection.
> 
> - -- 
> Matthew Paul Thomas
> http://mpt.net.nz/
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