[packagekit] Cross-distro package mapping and matching?

[Sebastian Pipping]

Mike McGrath wrote:
>> I am working on extending Smolt [1] (basic hardware tracker, think
>> "what soundcard do I run") into a software tracker (think "what
>> software do I have installed") suitable for the needs of Gentoo under
>> the umbrella of Google Summer of Code 2009.  This goal will extend to
>> cross-distro software tracking in the long run, maybe even the
>> short run.
> 
> Have you solved the performance issue?

Which one are you referring to?


> After all, what is in one git package in one
> distro might not match exactly the package in another distro.  Fedora
> packages each nagios-plugin seperately and I don't think any other distros
> do that.  I suspect there are hundreds of examples like this.

Correct, I'm aware of that.  I agree it results in more work on the
maintenance side.


> And at the
> end of the day, unless you check every package pretty regularly, they'll
> get out of sync anyway as package names can change.

True, the map used by such a project is changing all the time.
This is a point where maintenance tools can help a lot, e.g.
think of a tool sending out diff e-mails about relevant changes
to the package tree of distro X.



Sebastian