[packagekit] inclusion of "social software" functionalities?

[Richard Hughes]

On Sun, 2009-05-10 at 16:24 +0200, Roberto -MadBob- Guido wrote:
> Do someone ever discussed possible inclusion of "social software" 
> functionalities in PackageKit?

Well, I think this lies in a higher, session-based, layer above
PackageKit.

> In particular contexts (the popular Ubuntu packaging system, Entropy by 
> Sabayon...) already has been included functions such as sharing of rating 
> votes and comments about installed packages, accessible directly into the 
> package manager by other users wanting to install the same components, and 
> may be a good idea to formalize access to those addictional informations 
> since early releases of PackageKit (so to avoid to do it later, with more 
> effort in converge everything).

Right, for the UI, we need to move to an "application driven" approach,
not a package driven model like we have now.

> Differently from package managers abstraction, handling "social" data access 
> may be provided by distribution-specific drivers (everyone, Fedora and Debian 
> and so on, provides its own preferred database of comments and votes on the 
> web, and implements interface for PackageKit), or on a "source of 
> information" basis ("That came from KDE-apps.org, that from the Slackware's 
> users wiki...").

The problem is specifying a common name. Do we rate the package or the
application? How do we tie application names to versions to a website?

> May this argument be interesting into the PackageKit development?
> If the (until now, very superficial) idea likes, I can elaborate a more formal 
> proposal to be discussed. Waiting for comments.

Yes, we need to work out a way to do this properly. Sorry for the delay,
I've been on honeymoon for the last week or so.

Richard.