[packagekit] WhatProvides

[Bastien Nocera]

On Mon, 2008-03-17 at 15:27 -0400, David Zeuthen wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-03-17 at 17:36 +0000, Richard Hughes wrote:
> > Comments?
> 
> I think you need to specify the media framework in the codec part since
> codecs are tied to a specific framework (e.g. gstreamer, xine and so
> on). 
> 
> So it's just like how device drivers are tied to a specific (lineage of
> the) kernel or OS (e.g. Linux 2.6, FreeBSD, Solaris).  Probably for
> drivers it's sane to assume only one kernel is used though. But you
> can't do that for codecs.
> 
> >From an API point of view I want to be able to write this code in my "I
> can haz codecs" application
> 
>   if (am_using_gstreamer) {
>     pk_get_codec ("gstreamer-0.10", "audio/mpeg");
>   } if (am_using_xine) else {
>     pk_get_codec ("xine-xyz", "audio/mpeg");
>   }
> 
> Or maybe I write
> 
>   if (am_using_gstreamer) {
>     pk_get_codec ("gstreamer-0.10/audio/mpeg");
>   } if (am_using_xine) else {
>     pk_get_codec ("xine-xyz/audio/mpeg");
>   }
> 
> I don't know. But your docs for this thing need to tell such
> applications writers what to do.

I'd rather that wasn't shown at all in the API.

The provides are completely arbitrary, and the scripting makes it
extensible (I could add a provides script that checks whether you wrote
an application, and add that to the provides, running
"pk-install-provides davidz" would install your apps).

Restricting the provides based on type means that adding provides types
to distros will require applications to be updated.