[arch-projects] mBira project

[Paul Mattal]

I should mention (in other forums too, probably, but you brought 
up the issue so you get the benefit of my spontaneous response!) 
is that I have been thinking about the possible merits of 
allowing multiple versions of the same package for some time in 
AUR. It's an idea that appeals to me greatly.

I think the challenge will be making it simple enough to handle 
multiple versions of a package without it becoming overly 
complex. We Arch-ers like our simplicity!

I'd be interested to hear more ideas about how an elegant system 
could be constructed that would allow multiple versions of the 
same package by different maintainers. What would the db look 
like? What would the UI look like? What would the PKGBUILD 
hierarchy look like? How would things get handled when you 
transition unsupported->community, etc? How would we explain it 
simply to the community?

Of course, there's a lot of AUR discussion to be done. It's 
nearly time to sit down and have a broad-based community 
discussion about it and think about what's next. I'm sorry I've 
had so little time to devote to it recently. I'm planning to sit 
down with my calendar very soon to figure out some dates to 
propose for the Grand Unified Discussion Session. ;)

- P

cactus wrote:
> To me, the main reason for the continued existence of personal 
> repositories, is that the aur only allows a single package per name. If 
> two people want to package the same utility differently, too bad. Only 
> one person can "own" it in the aur.
> 
> Further, I custom compile several binaries (php with tidy-2.0 support 
> for instance). If someone else wants to use my binary, then they are 
> free to do so, instead of compiling it themselves.
> 
> Those are just two examples off the top of my head, why I think personal 
> user repositories will never go away.
> 
> In all honesty, I am going to use mBira as a front end to my personal 
> binary repository (replacing my previous use of PRIMAL). If nobody else 
> does, then that is their choice, and they are welcome to make it.
> 
> I just figured I would let people know about it, and let them make their 
> own choices.
> 
> On 6/1/05, Dusty Phillips <buchuki at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Since AUR can contain unofficial PKGBUILDs, I question the utility of
>> this? Why don't users with binary package dbs submit the packages to
>> AUR instead.
>>
>> The answer, of course, will be "because they have to build the
>> packages themselves". To this end, I think a script based on sourcepac
>> that automatically downloads PKGBUILDs and builds them would be more
>> useful.
> 
>