Container file?

[Yfrwlf]

On 05/14/2011 10:57 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
> I think, but am not sure, that these three files are per repo, not per
> package - i.e. you could have 1000 packages, and only have these three
> files to describe all of them. In that case, I have no qualms with
> there being 3 of them, as the current yum metadata format contains 10
> files (not all of which get downloaded for every transaction)
>
> Now if it's 2 files (since one of them is the currently existing
> metadata) per package, that might be a bit of an issue :)

Oh okay, so then I'm talking about placing the extracted cross-distro 
metadata/data that the /compose/ server creates into a cross-distro 
package file, besides creating the repo index.  Then you'd end up with 
both a cross-distro repo as well as cross-distro package files.  I know 
everyone is all about adding repos and not individual files so that you 
get updates and blur the line between downloading/installing/running 
apps, but there are many reasons to have the user manipulate the 
individual packages too, for transport, backup, network-less computers, 
wanting to stick to specific versions of a program, hosting on regular 
file servers, will be able to install programs even if a repository 
server was offline, etc etc...so sooner or later I think it's definitely 
something that needs to happen and wondered if anyone thought about the 
format of those container files yet.  Having the repo URL in the package 
file so that users had the option of connecting to the repo to download 
updated versions would be a nice option.  A user's package manager / 
software store could pop up and say, "This package file contains a 
repository URL, would you like to scan it for updated packages before 
installing this one?"
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