At 02:31 PM 7/7/2006 -0400, Phillip J. Eby wrote:

On the other hand, if such rigor is required, then it seems like we should just be using machine-readable data in the first place, rather than using a dual-purpose format like HTML or XHTML. Just go with a specialized XML dialect or some kind of text format (ZConfig? ;) ) and be done with it.

FWIW, I just discovered DOAP, and it seems like a good basis for this sort of thing. PyPI isn't generating 'file-release' info in its DOAP output, but probably should, if this is going to be used for that sort of thing. Likewise, I think that the reST-to-HTML translation should be carried over into the long-description content. (This is all assuming, of course, that you have use cases for which the richness of DOAP is relevant, anyway, as opposed to just trying to find download links for projects with known names.)