> ----- Forwarded message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- > Subject: Open Letter to Debian Community > With apt-get, you have to know exactly which packages you need to make > a software system work. > Let's take MySQL for example. To make it work, you need the mysql-common, > mysql-server, and mysql-client packages. Technically, mysql-common will > install without mysql-server and mysql-client. But it doesn't do you much > good. With apt-get, you have to already know this. You also have to know > the package name of any addons you might want, like graphical > administration tools or Apache plugins. And yes, I was using the graphical > interface to apt-get, not the command line.
Ok, this email is a lot like a number of other emails about the user-frendlyness of dselect, just moving the topic for apt-get. But... Yes, there is something we can think about. We have do admit that Debian has too many packages in a way it's really hard to find something when you know a little about the software. But, fortunally there is a project called debtags[1], which address exactly this issue. The problem is that probably most people (I mean people outside Debian) doesn't even know about it, and what I am saying we can think about is a plan of having debtags as a core infraestructure of debian, just like apt is today. Maybe we could do it for etch, but maybe it wouldn't be ready at the time etch releases *if* Debian don't say "debtags will be in the core infraestructure for etch", I mean, if Debian puts debtags as a priority for the next release, we will probably have the issue of package search user-friendliness, if not solved, at least better than it is today. One example of how debian could help debtags being integrated is a policy which makes the developer the responsible of tagging the packages (s)he maintains. Or even including the tag information in the control file, generating a file that would complement the Packages file, like Package-tags, or even including this information on the Packages file (the last option doesn't sound good to me). daniel [1] http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
