[Fwd: Re: [gentoo-dev] Horrible package descriptions]

[Spundun Bhatt]

I think Vadim wanted this to go to the list.
I like the way he has described... I have some ideas but nothing
coherent enough to put in an email... 
Spundun
-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Vadim <vadim_t@××××××××.es>
To: Spundun Bhatt <spundun@×××.EDU>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Horrible package descriptions
Date: 22 May 2003 23:38:36 +0200

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On Thursday 22 May 2003 22:28, Spundun Bhatt wrote:
> From my experience so far with gentoo... I have a feedback.
> A couple of times I wished the categories were more specific, Once I was
> looking for a juke box.. I wished I could search for all the sw simlar
> to xmms. And the other time it was sound editing rosegarden like
> software. Most of the time I am just curious how many varieties in a
> perticular app category are available... a catagory like gams could
> definately use it.
> Hope this helpls
> Spundun

This reminds me of a store management package. It has a classification by 
family, subfamily, "equivalence" (not sure how to call it, and it's 
translated), and article. To explain how it works:

And article is "Energizer 1.5V AA battery", in the batteries family, alkaline 
subfamily. That's a specific item in the store.

There also is an "equivalence" called "1.5V AA battery" also in the batteries 
family, alkaline subfamily. This is a general concept. All specific articles 
of this kind are all children of this.

So, the client calls and asks for that Energizer battery. The client can be 
quickly told that we don't have any of those, but that we have other 5 brands 
that provide the same functionality.


This is the thing I'd like to see in a Linux distribution. Say, XMMS could be 
in sound/player, with keywords "mp3", "ogg", "mod" and "s3m". Probably it'd 
also have some property that would identify it as a Gtk app. Konqueror, 
Mozilla, Netscape, Opera would all be in web/browser

Ideally, this is how things would work:
$ emerge search mp3 player
Searching...

sound/player/noatun:
   environment: KDE
   keywords: mp3 ogg

sound/player/xmms:
   environment: Gnome
   keywords: mp3 ogg mod s3m

sound/player/mp3blaster:
  environment: command line
  keywords: mp3 ogg

Recommended packages:
  [checks if the dependencies of any packages are already installed]
  noatun, mp3blaster

Ideally, this system would allow packages to be in several classifications, 
perhaps allow for synonims (sound == audio == music), would allow searching 
for inexact terms while intelligently (for example trying to match categories 
with search terms), and check what's installed to make a suggestion.

Suggestions, comments?
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