Hi Brad,
Auth is for more than just the author. It is for author, authority,
and authentication.
There is no password or other cryptographic way, so authentication is
not possible. Obviously, I might miss some insight here.
In the documentation I read; "|:auth| generally takes the form
|hosting:ID|, as in |github:github-user| or |gitlab:gitlab-user|". For
me, hosting is e.g. on GitHub or Gitlab to store the software, and
ecosystems are for spreading the word, i.e. telling that there is a
software available somewhere, and this somewhere is not important. That
is the work for zef to find out.
And the word 'generally' means that it is just an example, it is in the
end just a string.
Furthermore, there is no mention in the docs of any use other than
naming it in a useful way. No remarks of needing it to login into some
ecosystem and no word about that separator, being a column, or split it
up in more than two fields using an other character.
Searching through some distributions I find 'zef:lizmat',
'github:MARTIMM', 'tonyo', 'cpan:WARRINGD', 'github:ccworld1000,
ccworld1...@gmail.com, 2291108...@qq.com', showing that there is
absolutely no clear way to use that field. For me, it means again that
the auth field must be completely free and the same, independent of the
ecosystem in use.
CPAN can't authenticate github or fez modules, and vice versa. There
is a reason the field is only the first four letters.
The word 'github' is longer.
That they are seen as different modules is an intended feature, not a bug.
I didn't want to say that it was a bug, sorry for the confusion.
I would like to know how you would want the system to handle a module
from me. cpan:BGILLS github:b2gills and I intend to get b2gills on fez
as well. (CPAN doesn't allow numbers, otherwise I would have it there to.)
Do you want to write several meta files with different auth fields
depending on the ecosystem you want to send it to? The only thing you
can do without much work is sending a project e.g. to fez and another to
cpan but I don't see the use of spreading your projects over several
ecosystems.
Also for a class you wrote, JSON::Class, what should I write (I took it
to the extreme of course, 'use JSON::Class' would do)
use JSON::Class:auth<cpan:BGILLS>;
use JSON::Class:auth<github:b2gills>;
use JSON::Class:auth<fez:b2gills>;
All three are getting the same software, or not, when it is someone
els-es auth.
What if someone else took a user name on github that matched one on
CPAN or fez?
That is the point I want to make. Keeping the auth field the same
everywhere, independent of ecosystem, will show that the software is the
same everywhere. If that someone has the same account name as someone
else on cpan or fez it will show a difference in the auth field.
So, I think there is a lot to ponder over....
Regards,
Marcel
On Mon, May 2, 2022, 3:23 PM Marcel Timmerman <mt1...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I was wondering about the 'auth' specification in the meta file or
on the class/module/package. I was used to specify it as
'github:MARTIMM' because I store the stuff on GitHub for all the
goodies it offers. Now I see//that fez wants to start with 'fez:'
and when I look at the raku.land site for a module of mine I see a
remark /'/The uploading author of cpan:MARTIMM does not match the
META author of github:MARTIMM.' because I upload it to CPAN
nowadays and have never specified somewhere that the auth has
become 'cpan:MARTIMM'.
I feel that this is not useful (even correct) to pin someone to
use an auth specification with a defined prefix for some ecosystem
one is using. So changing to another ecosystem forces that person
to change the auth everywhere in its code and meta files to get
rid of any errors or warnings. Besides that, the change of the
author on the same code poses the question later on, if that code
is forked and changed by someone else or that it is still the same
developer working on it?
Regards,
Marcel
