Maturity ratings for applications and other software

Work items:
[sg] Produce a classification policy for USC, comparing with iOS and Android etc: TODO
[sg] With help from Michael Vogt, share ideas with Debian about the classification policy: TODO
[sg] Decide on moderate defaults for the decided software classification policy: TODO
[mvo] Investigate how much the Debtags work in Launchpad would be: TODO
[mpt] Investigate go-tag (Web interface for tagging) for software: TODO
[mpt] Design a UI for developers to classify their own software in developer.ubuntu.com: TODO
[mpt] Design a UI for end users to set their classification preferences: TODO
[mpt] Design UI for hiding filtered applications in USC: TODO
[mvo] Implement limited user account mechanism: TODO
[jasonwarner] Find people to design and implement easy creation of limited user accounts in User Accounts settings, and replace this work item with work items for those people: TODO

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_rating
http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/29/heres-how-iphone-app-store-ratings-work-hint-they-dont/
http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=188189

Examples for thought-testing any rating mechanism:
- http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/03/22/gay.cure.app.mashable/
- http://www.facebook.com/notes/omg-ubuntu/watch-out-pedobears-about/198901333475120

Using debtags: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2008-March/003738.html

[removed info about IFLA Internet Manifesto, which isn't relevant to admin-controlled use of ratings]

== UDS session notes ==

- kind of things we'd classify

=== How would we classify things? ===

Countries have widely varying classification systems
- e.g. countries differ in their system
- other countries disallow selling games unless they've been reviewed by their classification office
- Do we need to match those rating systems?
 - Each country's rating for an application could be a unique tagtag
- specific unusual examples, e.g. Nazi imagery in France
- Canonical has company risk for classifications, whereas Debian does not

[sg] Produce a content control policy for USC, comparing with iOS and Android etc
- share ideas with Debian with help from mvo
- cf. Miriam Ruiz, Debian Open Ratings System https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2008-March/003738.html - http://wiki.debian.org/OpenRating - http://www.miriamruiz.es/weblog/?p=155

=== Who would do the classifying? ===

For the Ubuntu archive: packagers and volunteers

For third-party software: proposed by the software developer

Possibility: additional user rating

[mpt] Design a UI for developers to classify their own software in developer.ubuntu.com

=== What would happen if the classification was bad? ===

- They'd get bad reviews
- Worry about appeals later

=== Where would the preferences be stored? ===

Launchpad needs to store and transmit Debtags
- These can be updated separately from updating the package itself (e.g. support time information, tasks)

- You can drop extra debtags sources in /etc/debtags/sources.list.d/ and apt-xapian-index will make use of these — possibly an alternative implementation

[mvo] Investigate how much the Debtags work in Launchpad would be
[mpt] Investigate go-tag (Web interface for tagging)
Enrico Zini

Debtags would be aggregated into the Packages file
Search would still work fine, integrating into xapian

=== What would the default setting be? ===

- Default to a moderate setting
- Maybe show a link, in search results, to filtered items
[sg] Decide on moderate defaults for the decided content control policy

=== How would people set their preferences? ===

Default to the preferences appropriate for the country they set

[mpt] Design a UI for consumers setting their classification preferences

=== How would classifications be enforced? ===

We would need:
- a limited account, one that
  - can install software from known sources
  - cannot add other sources
  - cannot install software outside the current classification settings
  - cannot use apt-get etc at all

- PolicyKit permission for aptdaemon

- Easy limited user account in User Accounts settings

[mvo] Implement limited user account mechanism

[jasonwarner] Find people to design and implement easy creation of limited user accounts in User Accounts settings.

[mpt] Design UI for hiding filtered applications in USC

- maybe make a set of guideline ages that certain content can watch and set the highest age for the content that is being rated. It would be a fairly easy system to maintain