[Catalog-sig] PEP 345 Update

[P.J. Eby]

At 02:26 AM 10/5/2010 +0100, Alexis Métaireau wrote:
>Hey all,
>
>Sorry for this long silence; I'm now back on track.
>
>Le 08/28/2010 04:27 AM, P.J. Eby a écrit :
> > At 05:08 PM 8/27/2010 -0400, Tres Seaver wrote:
> >> P.J. Eby wrote:
> >> FWIW, I helped add those fields to PEP 345, in the context of making the
> >> switch from "module / package"-centric values to distribution-centric
> >> ones.  The requirements came out of a sprint at PyCon 2009, with input
> >> from both the Debian / Ubuntu Python packager (Matthias Klose) and one
> >> of the Fedora packagers (Toshio Kuratomi).
> >
> > Great - could we get them to join in on this discussion to explain what
> > it is that they want the creators of Python libraries to put in these
> > fields, and what they intend to do with the information once it's there?
>+1 on that. We need to have inputs on that: that's good to have fields,
>but it's more important to know how they are supposed to be considered.
>
>Any news about that ? Do someone have email adresses of Matthias Klose
>and Toshio Kuratomi ?
>
>Also, it's important to notice there is a difference between the new
>field (release-conflict IIRC), and I assume it's important to have a
>discussion about it know, and the others fields that are just being
>renamed. (*-release fields). Maybe could we update the PEP a first time
>about the renaming changes, in order to use them in the first version of
>Distutils2, and them continue the discussion about the conflict field.

If a field doesn't have clear semantics, there is no point in 
allowing people to specify it - it is literally adding a new field to 
a database and inviting the entire world to put whatever they want in 
it...  which means you end up with a worthless database (at least in 
that column).

While this isn't the first metadata PEP with this problem, it would 
be nice if the previous one were the last.  ;-)