[Catalog-sig] Re: [chiPy] Meeting followup- CPAN for Python?

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 12:51:01PM -0600, Ian Bicking wrote:
> * Add a field for source download; maybe make it a dictionary, so you 
> can give several links for different sources (e.g., source 
> tarball/zip, rpm, windows installer, debian package, etc).

An up-and-coming standard for info about packages is an RDF vocabulary
called DOAP: http://usefulinc.com/doap .  IMHO we should think about
harmonizing the Distutils-supported metadata with DOAP.  I've
submitted a crude patch to PyPI that generates DOAP data for projects.

Things in DOAP not in Distutils/PyPI:

	CVS/SVN/BK repository (+ anonymous  root, module name)
	Mailing lists
	Wiki URL
	Bug database
	Screenshot URL
	Date project was created
	Releases 
	Versions are a revision number (1.2.3, 1.0a1, etc.) plus 
name and date.
	Multiple language literals (e.g. give both an English and a
French description).

However, just adding keywords to setup.core() for all these things may
not be a good idea -- if DOAP adds new features, we need to add
support for them.  Perhaps there should be some third-party way of
constructing a DOAP file, after which you'd leave the metadata out of
the setup.core() invocation.  

OTOH, requiring an RDF parser to deal with the metadata is also nasty;
parsers are pretty large, and adding one to the core might be a
struggle.

--amk