Re: A new method of storing package data base information, proposingpackages, and announcing updates

[Daniel Reed <n at ml dot org>]

On 2004-03-29T11:57+0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
) On Mar 27 00:26, Daniel Reed wrote:
) > If no #!src is provided, external-source will be required in the final
) > .hint. If no external-source is provided when one is needed, the field will
) I would refuse the package instead.  Otherwise we could have pretty
) funny results.

This is only a convenience feature. The hint provided by the maintainer
(through email or as downloaded from the web) would be augmented by a
processor on sources to fill in the missing bits as per whichever policies
are eventually adopted.


) > (skipping over libfoo-devel). For truly binary-only packages (such as
) > packages composed completely of shell scripts), #!src may be provided and
) > left blank.
) I would require
) #!bin-only

Sure; it should not be a problem to have #!binary-only or #!bin-only serve
as an alias for an empty #!src. The goal is to have some specific action to
differentiate binary-only packages from externally sourced packages.


) > sufficient. This would make it easy to construct an automatic web form or
) > special-purpose email address for package maintainers to cause new versions
) > to be downloaded, auto-reviewed, and pushed to the live repository without
) > any human intervention.
) Urgh, no webform, please.  Why not keeping it on cygwin-apps, just

My idea for a web script would be to validate the data before it is sent to
cygwin-apps, if only to avoid "please fix X and repost" messages. If the
format validated, the script would then forward the message to the list with
an optional preamble/epilog on behalf of the maintainer. The part that
performed updates would either automatically scan the archives or at most
require someone to login to sources, go into the package's release/
directory, and type "make update".

) requiring a specific layout, beginning with some marker in the subject?

There should not need to be any special magic in the subject, just a
requirement that the hints start with "@ packagename" or "@ package/path".


) Also, you would have to make sure that this doesn't pull new packages
) into the distro automagically, just because the layout of the announcement
) and the packaging was correct ;-)

At most it would be pulled into a non-live repository automatically. If
there is no entry in the live release/ tree, nothing sent to cygwin-apps or
otherwise submitted would cause any modifications to release/.

-- 
Daniel Reed <n@ml.org>	http://naim-users.org/nmlorg/	http://naim.n.ml.org/
"True nobility lies not in being superior to another man, but in being
superior to one's previous self."