>>>>> "Ian" == Ian Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Ian> The next question to ask ourselves is: who decides on these Ian> categories and who decides on which packages are in them ? Ian> Clearly the categories need to be decided on centrally, so Ian> their descriptions can be specified centrally. Agreed. However I suggest that the "description files" be an option. Because people"s taste vary, one description files cannot be optimal for evrybody. Ian> I think that if we have a stronger Priority mechanism, which Ian> distinguishes Optional packages that most people will want from Ian> those which most people should probably ignore, we can just Ian> allow package maintainers to decide which categorie(s) their Ian> package fits into. Ian> Then the categories are like keywords. So we end up with: Ian> * A file in the distribution alongside the Packages file. We Ian> could call it Categories. It contains a list of the Ian> categories. Each category would have one or more levels of Ian> support; for each level of support it lists the Ian> keyword/priority combinations that should be included. Ian> * Package installation tools should by default select packages Ian> according to whether they match the selected level of any Ian> category. But, the user can go in at a more detailed level and Ian> (de)select individual packages. The case where a package belong to several categories is somewhat tricky, because you select a category, unselect a package of it, and then select another category of that package. Anyway, I really think that a package's description should not be kept into the package itself. Because they are independent. One should be able to change the description without rebuilding the package. Think about i18n. -- Laurent Martelli [EMAIL PROTECTED]
