I noticed that there have been only sporadic certificates for about 2 weeks.
In the last 8 days, only 2 pull requests have been merged, while since then about 17 apps are waiting in the pending list.
It would be extremely nice if there could be more transparency by means of a note in the readme, if there are currently strong delays, e.g. due to illness or vacation.
The following note in the current readme is only vaguely worded: “You don’t need to mention anybody. People who can help here are subscribed to this repo and will come back.” and does not necessarily help if you have been waiting for a certificate for a week.
This is not meant to be a complaint, but just a friendly hint.
I forwarded your comment and my No 1 contact is currently on vacation, actually. So, eventually, you will have to wait a few days until it is clear what the problem is. At least, someone took the feedback and will hopefully solve your issue (indirectly).
I didn’t necessarily speak for myself, because my app has been waiting “only” for 3 days, but pull requests sometimes wait 2 weeks(!) and that’s extremely frustrating for app developers and you shouldn’t forget that Nextcloud also lives through community apps, as you know by your own app
thanks for reaching out and thanks @christianlupus for forwarding it. I checked the repo and indeed there is some backlog there, very sorry about that. There is already some work internally to handle the requests in a more timely manner, this is not done yet and I fear current holiday season crossed paths here…
I also made people internally aware of the backlog.
This is not meant to be a complaint, but just a friendly hint.
Not seen this way, but much appreciated you mention it!
Two weeks on from the reply above, I would like to add an update rather than a complaint.
Since 26 August no pull request in app-certificate-requests has been merged — that is eight days now — and 52 requests are currently open. My own request (#1183, submitted 24 August) has a green DCO and nothing outstanding on my side; it simply waits.
Holidays and illness happen, and nobody can be blamed for that. What would help enormously is an announcement in advance: a line in the repository README, or a pinned post here, saying “reviews are paused until <date>” or “expect up to N weeks at the moment”. Knowing that a delay is expected is a completely different experience from watching a silent queue and wondering whether one has done something wrong, or whether the request was even received.
I also understand that the workload has grown. AI tooling has made it much faster to build apps, so more requests arrive than before, and that is nobody’s fault. But most of us build these apps in our own time and give them away for free. A short, honest status note costs very little on your side and saves a great deal of guessing on ours.
Thank you for the work you put into the app store.