>>>>> On Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:50:19 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Elaine M. Ashton) >said: > Andreas J. Koenig [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] quoth: > *> > *>I'm not arguing for changing the format but to optimize it for what we > *>are doing. The most urgent points I would like to see addressed are: > *> > *>- List of and checksums for all files in the distribution, > Could you elaborate on this a bit? What is the checksum good for, where > would it be stored and could it be obsoleted by a cryptographic signature? My idea was to have the complete list of contained files, each with a checksum. This can be signed then. A signature that is produced this way can be included in the distribution file and doesn't need to be distributed separately. Distributing separately is considered annoying and errorprone. > *>- a signature > *>- a list of namespaces used within the files that are being installed > *> by this distribution > *>- a list of version numbers > I'd like to see a the dependancies and possibly a list of 'categories' and We can just mentally go through the MakeMaker variables and put them in if they tend to be relevant. PREREQ_PM is very relevant. For categories we still have to decide on a categorisation scheme. It's not needed immediately and can be added any time. > a unique catalogue number for each that would be assigned on upload. Unique catalog number could be CPAN ID plus filename. If it's assigned on upload, it is too probably late. > What else would people like to see besides author, email, name, version, > url, signature, dependancies....??? I'd like to NOT have author's name and email in there because that is redundant information and tends to get out of date. We wouldn't want to ask people to re-upload just because their email address has changed, would we? Author's credentials are not in the OSD, right? But they are in the PPD. Hmmm. I'd say, it should go away. The CPAN ID is fine, it is associated with a record in a public database and the record can be edited by the person. PAUSE could refuse an upload if the ID in the OSD isn't the same as the person doing the upload or some such. -- andreas
