Dear DEP 11 drivers and everybody, in the course of the discussion about DEP 12, which is about storing upstream metadata on file per source package, formatted in YAML, it was asked the relationship between our projects and the possibilities of convergence.
Personally, I am in favor of convergence if it is practical, that is, if it does not postpone the achievement of our goals by setting the bar too high. I note a couple of key differences between DEP 11 and DEP 12, and would be interested in hearing your opinion about. - DEP 11 targets binary packages, and DEP 12 targets source packages. For DEP 12, recording the information per binary packages would create a lot of duplication. One solution would be to use the Debian source package control file (debian/control), with the fields in the binary package paragraphs taking precedence over the fields in the header paragraph. However, following that way would strongly change what a source package control file looks like, and I am afraid that it would take a long time to reach a consensus. - DEP 11 is mostly about the production of a single archive-wide file, while DEP 12 is about the production of one file per source package (which is used to feed the Ultimate Debian Database). It would be straightforward for volunteers to take upstream metadata and inject it either the ComponentMetadata file proposed by DEP 11 or in another file. Given that DEP 12 is only about the format of the metadata, I do not see a conflict here. - DEP 11 looks mostly relevant for binary packages shipping Desktop applications, while DEP 12 is relevant to all non-native packages. It is still very unclear to me what will be the source of the data in DEP 11. Will it be the FreeDesktop Desktop Entry files found in the upstream sources ? If it is the case, we would have different data flows, as for DEP 12, most upstream sources do not contain files with the metadata, which justifies the creation of an entirely new file, while in the case of DEP 11, the best way to update the metadata would be to send patches upstream. Have a nice week-end, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-qa-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130105081638.gc22...@falafel.plessy.net
