New Submissions

New submissions to the ARB come through the developer portal web interface. The apps relevant to the ARB have $0.00 price and a FLOSS license. All ARB members have a reviewer account on this system, log in and you'll see a link to "View ARB applications up for review or pending QA". There is also a public, read-only view of this queue.

Prefiltering

Some common errors can be quickly prefiltered in the developer portal, such as submitting a binary package or tarball instead of a source package or tarball. From the Details page for the app, click "Start review". Fill in your query for the app developer, and click "Ask for information". Some common feedback messages are collected at AppReviewBoard/Review/Responses.

Review

Check the app for the following criteria, noting each as Pass/Fail, and including any comments.

Content

• Content is suitable under the terms of the Ubuntu Code Of Conduct
• Submissions should be applications, not stand-alone documentation or media (image bundles, fonts, movies).
• Apps should not be forks of existing applications in the Ubuntu archive (main/universe/etc).
• Apps should be useful or interesting to a general audience.
• No other software can depend on the application being submitted (e.g. development libraries should be submitted to main/universe or upstream to Debian instead).

• Applications must be Free/Libre/Open Source software. We follow the Ubuntu Licensing Policy.

• Applications must be able to be built with tools & libraries in the Ubuntu archive. Apps may bundle additional libraries they depend on, but may not include new versions of already packaged libraries.

Running

• Application runs correctly
• Major features operate as expected
• Does not perform any malicious actions

Packaging

• The application is well packaged using the Debian packaging system
• All correct dependencies are met
• Application installs cleanly
• Application can be removed cleanly
• Includes suitable copyright and licensing content
• Application integrates into the desktop, with appropriate Launcher or menu entries

If the app fails on any points, the reviewer will contact the submitter with suggestions for changes.

Voting

When the reviewer considers the application ready for vote, the reviewer will raise it on the ARB mailing list with the subject [VOTE] Application Review: <application name>. Votes on the application are made in replies on the mailing list, using the format:

 MEMBER: <ARB member's name>
 VOTE: <+1 or -1>
 NOTES: <additional input on the request (optional)>

• Two +1 votes (1 vote from a UbuntuDeveloper and 1 vote from ARB member) mean the application is approved.

• Two -1 votes mean the application is rejected/pushed back to the app developer for further review.
• If there are questions about an application, it may be held for further discussion and review.

One member will summarize the results and add it as a comment to the submission.

Pre-upload review procedure

Before uploading a package to the ARB PPA, the ARB member should quickly go through this checklist to make sure not to miss anything:

• Make sure the links to the screenshot in debian/control point to software-center.ubuntu.com and not myapps.developer.ubuntu.com.
• Look for typos in the packaging, one that we missed was a typo in the Screenshot or Icon name

• Make sure the version number is consistent with: <upstream>-0extras<release>.<X> where X starts at 1 with the first upload. Example: 1.2.3-0extras11.04.1 for the first upload of a package with the upstream version 1.2.3

• Merge changelog entries to only have one entry per upload to the extras PPA
• Triple check the target distro
• Run lintian on both source and binary package one last time
• Upload to the PPA. Make sure it builds fine and that it then shows up on extras.ubuntu.com (within 24 hours).
• Check in Software Center that it shows up properly and installs fine.
• [OPTIONAL] Blog about it