Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 05:24:29 -0500 From: Will Andrews <will@physics.purdue.edu> To: doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: An opportunity for FreeBSD Message-ID: <20000919052429.W35550@radon.gryphonsoft.com> In-Reply-To: <20000918212800.L567@parish>; from marko@FreeBSD.ORG on Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 09:28:00PM %2B0100 References: <20000918212800.L567@parish>
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On Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 09:28:00PM +0100, Mark Ovens wrote: > "There's another angle I think that's worth investigating. At the > O'Reilly docs summit a couple of months back, representatives from > the GNOME, KDE, and Linux documentation projects were all looking > at the similar problem of getting apps to register their > documentation, and also to try and provide an interface over and > above simple HTML." What WOULD be nice is if there was a real standard for metadata across all open source projects. Unfortunately, most OS projects don't include a packaging list (like our pkg/PLISTs) that we could use. If they did, a very significant number of problems with generating packages would be solved (WRT FreeBSD ports, I have no idea how deb or rpm does it), since we could then depend on a certain project's distribution PLISTs instead of generating our own. [ wrote this part hastily without reading the entire message.. ] Unfortunately, I don't know of any forum where everyone interested in this sort of metadata is involved in discussions (this would need to include developers from a large number of major projects, including FreeBSD, Debian, RedHat, OpenBSD, NetBSD, KDE, GNOME, GNUCash, Postgres, and so on, in order to reach a community-wide agreement). So there is no standard at the moment. I know of a KDE project (of which I am a developer, but currently inactive) where we take kdevelop .spec files and generate rpm's. Apparently the spec files contain enough information generate FreeBSD ports too, which is why I joined the project. It's called kpp (http://sourceforge.net/projects/kpp). It's kinda inactive right now... [ ..blah.. ] > I believe that it would be a Good Thing (TM) for FreeBSD to join this > project for several reasons: > > 1. We really should have a mechanism for indexing the docs > installed by the ports/packages. > > 2. By adopting Dewey (or whatever it becomes known as) rather > than developing our own system we will reduce the work involved > in implementation and maintenance. > > 3. It will help raise the visibility of FreeBSD in a predominately > Linux environment. I agree with all of the above. > If we get involved now, at the outset, we will have a say in the > design and development of the system (i.e. prevent it becoming overly > Linux-specific) and get FreeBSD-specifics in the base source code. As > you might expect, this is going to be GPL'd (down Brett, down boy ;)) > but I doubt that we will change that, however it would become an Open > Source project, rather than a Linux project (that FreeBSD may possibly > adopt in the future). Yes, absolutely. I would be interested in this project (please ignore my first paragraph or two), where do I sign up?!???! [ later..: oh yeah, but #dewey on irc.openprojects.net is empty. guess dewey.sourceforge.net will have to do.. ] > As to the additional work that this will make for port maintainers if > Dewey is adopted will be considerably less than using our own system. > For larger ports whose projects support Dewey, e.g. KDE, GNOME, etc., > there should be no work at all as the meta-data will be in the source > tar-balls and for ports without the meta-data included we should be > able to automate its generation (although some hand tweaking may be > necessary). Exactly. This is one thing I've always thought OS projects missed out. Of course, it'll be a pain in the ass to update a file like this in CVS all the time, but even more so for the various projects around the place trying to make packages for their systems. But that's another story and should be discussed someplace else (like openpackages :-). > The only other areas where work will be needed is for bsd.port.mk(?) > to be modified to call Dewey as part of the install target (I expect > that Dewey will be able to determine if the port has any docs to > register). pkg_add(1) will also need modifying to do the same thing > when installing packages and pkg_delete(1) to call Dewey to > de-register the docs when a port/package is uninstalled. Let's not get too hasty here. I don't see this sort of thing being adopted by OS projects everywhere for at least a few months, so by the time an agreement on a standard is reached, we may have already obsoleted the current bsd.port.mk in FreeBSD (see openpkgs). > I have subscribed to the mailing list (which is rather quiet at the > moment, but should liven up once code is available) and would like to > be able to announce that FreeBSD is "officially" supporting the > project (which means a committment to adopting Dewey for the > ports/packages when it reaches production quality). I am willing to > act as co-ordinator for this and will attempt to do most of the work. I will offer my support as one of the most active ports team members. > I also intend to lobby the {Net,Open}BSD docs people to support Dewey. > If all three projects get involved it will, IMHO, give *BSD a big > presence (and influence) in a Linux project. Yes, of course. What would be even better is if Linux and other OSs joined the openpackages effort too, because that need not be limited to BSD groups. -- Will Andrews <will@physics.purdue.edu> <will@FreeBSD.org> GCS/E/S @d- s+:+ a--- C++ UB++++$ P+ L- E--- W+ N-- !o ?K w--- O- M+ V- PS+ PE++ Y+ PGP+>+++ t++ 5 X+ R+ tv+ b++ DI+++ D+ G++ e>++++ h! r- y? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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