volatile <-> get hot new stuff
Volatilians,
the idea to honour the need for up-to-date packages is really good. But what
happens on a distro level, also happens on a desktop level somehow. Both KDE
and GNOME already have frameworks in place to keep user-centric data current.
Such data could be wallpapers, widget styles/themes, game levels, vocabulary
files, and office suite templates. Once characteristics is that every now and
then, another user improves upon the work already available and wants to
share it with other users again.
To find a common protocol and service description, a new project has been
founded recently:
http://ghns.berlios.de/
(to be moved to ghns.freedesktop.org in some time)
Technically, the single most important property of packages is to be able to
load data both from the system directory and from $HOME/.xxx, which most
packages already do. GHNS supports digital signatures, i18n contributions and
user ratings.
There are some areas where work will definitely still have to be done. One
such area is that it should work well together with (parallel) installations
on a system level. Imagine a user downloading the latest astronomy update
package for KStars, while the next upstream release (and subsequently distro
package) will install it as well, which in turn the user won't notice. Just a
random example of a current weakness.
All people interested in the standardisation process, giving ideas or
implementing some software (frontend/backend) for it, please join the mailing
list:
https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/ghns-discuss
The concepts of volatile and ghns are not the same, but there are common
elements, and I think it does make sense to learn from each other, and in the
end the user will profit from it, and the distros will have less work keeping
the user happy.
Josef
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