Universal package specification

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 11/28/2009 12:50 AM, Eugene Gorodinsky wrote:

> 
> Also since packages are not only distributed by themselves, but (and
> this happens more and more often) through repositories, some of the
> header data in packages such as rpm or dpkg packages is duplicated. In
> order to eliminate duplication the new format separates package
> information (such as dependencies, package name, provides etc.) from
> the actual files that need to be installed. The package information is
> contained in the package manifest and the files that will be installed
> are contained in package archives.
> 
> This specification is by no means complete, and I would like to get some input.

Is this format supposed to be edited or generated automatically by
upstream developers using tools? If it is machine generated and parsed,
then look at

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/devel-announce-list/2009-April/msg00007.html

For this purpose, XML is fine but if it is supposed to be edited by
package maintainers, you might want to look at the key value ini format
used by Moblin

http://www.mailinglistarchive.com/fedora-devel-list@redhat.com/msg78885.html

IMO, having the upstream developers put in some metadata in their source
code which all downstream developers can use readily use would help the
distributions without duplication of metadata and sharing the burden of
maintenance.

Rahul