Re: Integrating package.el

[Stefan Monnier]

> The "package file" (analogous to a RPM/DEB package fike) should contain
> the real, final version of all the files.  The package repository may
> accumulate metadata about all the package files it contains, but I
> should be able to copy a single package file to another system and
> install it.  As a sysadmin I don't want package files to be
> indeterminate.  For instance, how can I set up a local mirror if some of
> the files inside some of the package files are possibly remote?  There's
> all the other security risks I listed in my previous note, too,
> concerning remote network access.

> This is a huge sysadmin problem with Perl for instance, where the
> liberal packaging standard and complicated build process make it hard to
> synchronize packages across multiple installations.  I've suffered
> through that many times and hope it doesn't recur with Emacs packages.
> Some OS integration (DEB, RPM, MacOS X, etc.) would be useful, at least
> as a possibility.

OK, I'm not sure whether we're talking about the same things.  The way
I see it, there will be the following elements:
- a (set of) Bzr repository holding the package sources.
- a tool that will build tarballs from those sources.
- an area where those tarballs are stored, along with some metadata
  (think Debian repository).
- a tool that can scan such repositories and downlooad packages from
  them, obeying dependencies (think APT).
- a tool that can install/activate/uninstall a given package, ... (think
  DPKG).  This last one is what I tried to write when I wrote install.el
  many moons ago.


        Stefan