Multi distro/multi OS install: or package: URI scheme ?

[François Revol]

Hi there,
it occured to me Debian based distros have a custom apt: URI handler to 
direct people to packages to install from a web page.

http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/10/22/the-apturl-protocol-handler-in-ubuntu-710/

It is an interesting initiative, but since I don't only use Debian or 
Ubuntu, nor only GNU/Linux, I'm wondering about a more universal 
approach.

I've talked a bit with someone from http://slitaz.org/ and they have 
been thinking about their own tazpkg:// uri scheme...

I'd rather have something more generic, that could fit Haiku also, and 
possibly Windows or OSX to help it gain more acceptance... (Firefox 
could include a custom handler plugin for ex...)

For weird OSes like Windows it could embed a base url to help locate 
the .exe even if the last part is done manually.
It could be something like
install:foo,bar?baseurl=http%3a%2f%2fbarcompany.com%2fdownload.php

which would then be resolved as http://barcompany.com/download.php?os=windows&arch=x86&package=foo 
...

It would also work with GNU/Linux packages not in apt/rpm (yet), with 
the proper warnings.

I propose to discuss such install: scheme and hopefully submit an RFC 
to make it more official.

François.