[Debtags-devel] debram proposals

Thaddeus H. Black t@b-tk.org
Mon, 11 Oct 2004 16:01:00 +0000


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Who reads long posts?  :-)

This long post may interest you even if you have
not closely followed debram development.  If
package tagging interests you, then three or
four minutes spent here---skimming the proposals
at least---are well invested.

Your on-list comments on specific points are
solicited.

The topic is the long-inteded sarge extension of
debram's master ramification plan.  As expected,
the thousands of new sarge packages have
overburdened some of the existing woody debram
branches.  Regarding your suggestions and other
relevant ideas, I have over time kept careful
notes.  Today the general shape of a strategy to
extend the ramification plan for sarge begins to
emerge.

1.  The [1800 X] division is too crowded:
there are too many X packages to ramify
in a single division of one hundred numbers.
It is proposed to open an entirely
new [9000 X, Video and Audio] section,
and to move

  * [1800 X],
  * [1900 Audio] and
  * [4800 Video Output]
 =20
there.  (Since there is no active man
section (9), to open ram section [9000] does
break somewhat with previous practice,
but [1000] is overburdened and it is felt
that we need the space.)

2.  It is proposed to expand Gnome's two
numbers [1861] and [1862] to a full division of
one hundred numbers within the new [9000]
section.  It is proposed to expand KDE's two
numbers [1863] and [1864] to a full group of ten
numbers.  (Admittedly, I do not think that I
personally will make the time further to
subramify the KDE packages, but if an
interested, reliable, competent volunteer
stepped forward, naturally I would turn the task
over to him.)

3.  It is proposed to reuse some of the newly
available [1800] and [1900] numbers, and also
some of the never-used [1400] numbers, for other
section [1000 User-oriented Packages]
needs---despite the obvious infelicities in
reusing old numbers.  Excuse: debram is
versioned 0.x not 1.x, and we need the space.

4.  In light of man section (2),
logically, we probably should have
numbered the [8150 The Kernel] group as
the [2000 The Kernel] section in the first
place.  It is proposed to move [8150]
to [2000] accordingly.  (There does exist
a [2000 System Calls] section already,
but it remains empty and unused.)

5.  I believe that I made a mistake in lumping
the many fine Ruby packages under [1580 CJK] in
woody.  Contrary to my belief then, Ruby does
appear to be adequately documented in English,
nor is its use any longer confined largely to
Japan.  It is proposed to separate Ruby into its
own branch under [1370 Other Interpreters].
Probably [1372 Ruby].

6.  Woody had such limited and problematic Java
support that Java did not seem to merit its own
branch.  This has changed in a big way in sarge.
It is proposed accordingly to open the new
branch [1376 Java].

7.  It is noted that [1350 Python], [1360 Perl]
and [1580 CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean)] need
further subramification.  I admit that I lack
the time and (in the case of CJK) the knowledge
further to subramify these.  Unless competent
volunteers step forward, it is not proposed
further to subramify these groups.

8.  It is proposed to consider reorganizing
the [4700 Misc Devices] division.

9.  It is proposed to open a new branch
within [4700 Misc Devices] for smartcards.
(I do not know what a smartcard is, but various
different maintainers keep uploading "smartcard"
packages, so there must be something to it.)

10.  It is proposed to open a branch for
Gstreamer.

11.  It is proposed to consider separating
LADSPA from [1910 Audio Filtration and
Synthesis], into its own branch.

12.  It is proposed to open a new branch
somewhere under [8100 General Administration]
for chroot-related packages.

13.  It is proposed to open the new
branch [8144 DVD].

14.  It is proposed to open the new
branch [1346 Ada] (I have no idea what people
use Ada for, but enough Maintainers are keeping
Ada packages that it seems clear that Ada merits
its own branch).

15.  It is proposed to consider opening a
game-programming branch.  It is not yet clear
where on the tree to hang it, though.

16.  Regarding the large, undifferentiated
[8400 Foreign Operating Systems] division, I
admit that I do not really want to do it, but we
probably need to divide it into at least three
groups: Microsoft, PDAs and other.  It is
proposed to consider doing this.

17.  It is proposed to consider renumbering the
entire [8650 Mail Transport] group to [1660],
which is numerically adjacent to [1650 Mail].

18.  It is proposed to consider opening
separate branches somewhere for

  * PowerPC and
  * AMD64
 =20
packages.  Also maybe for ARM.

19.  It is proposed to open a branch
specifically for Mozilla.

20.  It is proposed to open the new
branch [8674 PHP].

21.  It is proposed to open the new
branch [8783 DSL].

22.  It is proposed to consider separating
speech-synthesis/recognition packages from the
undifferentiated [1770 Spell Checking and
Other Natural-language Tools] into their own
branch.

23.  It is proposed to open the new
branch [1753 SQLite].

24.  It is proposed to split the existing
ill-defined [1327 Other Revision Control] into
several more coherent branches, including

  * Configuration and Local File Installation,
  * File Synchronization across Hosts,
  * Subversion ([1323] is planned for this), and
  * Other Revision Control.

25.  It is proposed to separate dockapp window
managers from non-dockapp window managers, in
separate branches.

26.  It is proposed to consider opening a new
branch for the ReiserFS.

27.  It is proposed to open a new branch for the
statistical mathematics system R.

28.  The previous item raises the question of
what to do with the [1720 Mathematics] group,
which is crowded and has only one unused branch
number left.  Accordingly, it is proposed
to consider moving [1720] to a roomier
new [1400 Mathematics] division.

29.  It is proposed to open a new MPI/PVM branch
for distributed numerical computing.

30.  It is proposed to open a new branch just
for GNUstep.

31.  M. Biebl, A. Monsalve Salazar,
W. Borgert and T. Szerb have recently
each packaged comms-protocol software
which does not fit neatly in any of the
existing [8600 Network Foundation and Services]
branches.  Where exactly to put the new protocol
packages is not yet entirely clear to me, but it
is noted that one or two new branches of some
kind are probably needed in [8600] to
accommodate them.  (Currently some
of the packages are ramified
under [1975 VoIP and H.323], but Michael Biebl
advises us that this is not quite right.)

32.  It is proposed to consider opening a new
branch for userspace filesystems.

33.  It is proposed to open a new branch for the
newly popular Jack audio system.

34.  It is proposed to give Webmin its own
branch.

35.  I admittedly do not understand what DVB is
or what it is wanted for, but I do notice that
various different maintainers do seem to be
producing new DVB packages.  Advice in the
matter is requested.

36.  Now that the OCaml team have produced a
version of OCaml which does not depend on xlibs,
it is proposed to renumber [1837 Ocaml]
to [1345].  (This proposal honors a suggestion
Erich made a year ago.  Maybe you thought that
I forgot, but I have kept notes!  The new
number is under [1300 Programming] rather
than [1800 X].)

37.  It is proposed to open the new
branch [8619 Pcap].

38.  It is proposed to consider SDL more a
standard X feature rather than an add-on.
This means that some packages now corraled
in [1882 SDL] would be permitted to go join
other branches instead.

39.  Most of the foregoing proposals treat
recent free-software developments, but this
proposal treats a very old one.  It is proposed
to open a [8626 UUCP] branch and to gather the
various old UUCP packages to common retirement
there.

40.  It is unclear to me how many people are
actually interested in the Pike/Roxen/Caudium
complex of packages, but the maintainers of
these packages have so earnestly and so
persistently continued to package new software
that they probably merit their own branch
somewhere.  It is proposed to assign them one.

These are not all my notes, but I think that
together they capture most of the chief points.
They are as yet proposals only.  Your remarks on
them and additions to them will be welcome.  (If
you add new sarge debram proposals, it would
help me if you numbered them beginning at 41, so
that we can neatly add them to the checklist
above.)

Here for convenience of reference is the
complete existing woody ramification plan.
(Please delete it from your copy if you quote
this mail back to the list.)

0100 The Bash Shell
0400 Other Shells
1000 User-oriented Packages
1100   General Commands
1110     File Commands
1111       General File Commands
1112       File Listing and Finding
1113       Symbolic Linking
1114       Directories
1115       File Moving, Copying and Naming
1117       Misc File Commands
1120     Text Commands
1121       General Text Commands
1122       Text Scanning and Filtering
1123       Text Formatting
1124       Text Sorting
1125       Text Comparison
1126       Internationalization, Localization and Unicode
1127       Misc Text Commands
1128       Byte Handling
1140     Basic Database I/O
1180     Date and Time
1190     Other General Commands
1200   Basic Tools
1210     Compression, Archival and Backup
1211       Compression, Archival and Text/Data Codec
1212       Backup
1220     Tasking
1221       Execution Scheduling
1222       File Locking
1227       Other Tasking
1230     Logging
1240     Pagers, Documentation Tools and Text Editors
1241       Pagers and Documentation Tools
1243       Nano
1244       Vi
1245       Emacs
1246       Other Text Editors
1247       Editor Support
1248       Line Editors
1249       Binary Editors
1250     Console and TTY
1251       Login
1252       Console
1253       TTY
1255       Line-oriented Text I/O
1256       Screen-oriented Text I/O
1260     File Managers
1270     Other Basic Tools
1300   Programming
1310     Programming Foundation
1311       C
1312       C++
1313       Libraries and Linking
1314       Assembly
1315       Make
1316       Lexing and Parsing
1317       Object-request Brokerage and Interface Definition
1318       Debugging
1319       Other Programming Foundation
1320     Revision Control
1321       RCS and CVS
1327       Other Revision Control
1330     Autoconf
1340     Other Compiled Languages and Miscellany
1341       Fortran 77
1342       Objective C
1343       Common Lisp
1344       Scheme
1347       Further Compiled Languages
1348       Microcontroller Simulation
1349       Programming Miscellany
1350     Python
1351       Python Foundation
1352       Python Modules
1353       Python Programming
1355       Python Software
1360     Perl
1361       Perl Foundation
1362       Perl Modules
1363       Perl Programming
1365       Perl Software
1370     Other Interpreters
1374       Guile
1375       Bytecode Interpreters
1377       Further Interpreters
1378       Embedding and Wrapping
1500   Non-English Natural Language
1510     Non-English Latin-1
1511       General Latin-1
1512       German
1513       Scandinavian
1515       French
1516       Italian
1517       Spanish
1518       Portuguese
1519       Other Latin-1 Language
1580     CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean)
1590     Other Non-English Natural Language
1600   Networking
1640     Network Clients and Servers
1641       General Network Clients and Servers
1642       FTP
1643       News
1644       Telnet, Rsh and Ssh
1645       Basic Messaging
1646       IRC
1647       Other Messaging and File-sharing
1648       Ident and Finger
1649       Misc Network Clients and Servers
1650     Mail
1651       Mail User Agents
1653       Mailbox Handling
1654       Mail Fetching
1657       Other Mail
1658       MIME and Other File Mailing
1670     Web
1671       General Web
1672       HTML
1700   Other
1710     Printing
1711       Print Dispatch and Basic Printing
1712       PostScript and PDF
1713       TeX Foundation
1714       TeX
1715       Groff
1716       SGML / XML
1717       Other Markup
1718       Fonts
1720     Mathematics
1721       Geometry
1722       Arithmetic
1723       Octave
1724       Other Numerical Analysis
1725       Artificial Intelligence
1726       Scientific and Engineering Simulation and Analysis
1727       Other Mathematics
1728       Plotting
1730     Cryptography
1740     Image Filtration and Handling
1750     SQL
1751       PostgreSQL
1752       MySQL
1757       Other SQL
1760     Other Database Tools
1770     Spell Checking and Other Natural-language Tools
1790     Further Software
1791       Misc Software
1792       Debian Jr
1794       Software Not Meriting Further Ramification
1796       Genetics, Biology and Medicine
1800   X
1810     X Foundation
1820     Basic X
1821       General Basic X
1822       X TTY
1823       X Fonts
1824       X Image Handling
1825       X General Desktop Support
1826       X Frontends to Basic Commands
1827       X Servers
1828       X Login
1829       Other Basic X
1830     X Programming
1831       General X Programming
1835       Tcl/Tk Foundation
1836       Tcl/Tk
1837       OCaml
1839       Misc X Programming
1840     X Applications
1841       X Line Drawing and CAD
1842       X Mathematics and Hard Science
1843       X Graphics
1844       X Browsers, Editors and File Managers
1845       X Print Preview and Printing
1846       X Networking
1847       X WWW
1848       X Desktop Clocks, Maps and System Indicators
1849       Other X Applications
1850     X Toolkits
1851       GTK
1853       Qt
1857       Other X Toolkits
1860     X Window Managers and Desktops
1861       Gnome Foundation
1862       Gnome
1863       KDE Foundation
1864       KDE
1866       Window Maker
1867       Other Heavyweight X Window Managers
1868       Lightweight X Window Managers
1869       X System-monitor Stacking
1880     3-D and Multimedia
1881       OpenGL
1882       SDL
1883       Video4Linux
1884       X Audio/Music Editing
1885       X Audio/Music Playback
1886       XMMS
1887       Other 3-D and Multimedia
1900   Audio
1910     Audio Filtration and Synthesis
1920     Audio Mixing and Playing
1921       Audio Mixing
1925       Basic Audio Recording and Playback
1930     Audio Codec
1931       Ogg Vorbis
1934       MP3
1937       Other Audio Codec
1940     Audio Streaming
1950     MIDI
1960     Audio CDs
1961       CD Playing
1962       CD Recording
1965       CDDB and Audio CD Indexing
1970     Other Audio
1971       Other Audio Formats
1975       VoIP and H.323
1977       Further Audio
1980     Sound Systems
1981       ALSA
1982       NAS
1983       ESound
1984       RPlay
1987       Other Sound Systems
2000 System Calls
3000 General Libraries
3100   Foundational Libraries
3110     Foundational General Libraries
3120     Foundational C++ Libraries
3140     Foundational Database Libraries
3180     Threading
3700   Misc Libraries
3710     Misc General Libraries
3720     Misc C++ Libraries
3740     Misc Database Libraries
4000 Devices
4100   General Device Interface
4200   USB
4300   Mice, Joysticks and Game Pads
4310     Mice
4320     Joysticks and Game Pads
4400   Unusual, Specialized or Proprietary Devices
4410     Unusual, Specialized or Proprietary Processors
4420     Microcontrollers
4430     Calculators
4450     Unusual, Specialized or Proprietary Printers
4460     X-10
4470     Other Unusual, Specialized or Proprietary Devices
4480     Unusual, Specialized or Proprietary Video Cards
4490     Unusual, Specialized or Proprietary Audio
4700   Misc Devices
4710     Serial Ports
4720     Printers
4730     PCMCIA, APM and Other Mobile Devices
4740     UPS
4750     Radio
4751       Wireless Computing
4753       Mobile Phones
4755       Ham Radio
4756       GPS
4757       Other Radio
4760     Diskless Computing
4770     Other Misc Devices
4800   Video Output
4810     Framebuffer Video
4820     SVGAlib Video
4830     GGI Video
4870     Other Video
4900   Video Input
5000 General Files
6000 Games
6100   Text Games
6800   Graphical Games and Games with Sound
6810     X Graphical Games
6811       General X Games
6812       Gnome Games
6814       KDE Games
6820     Non-X Graphical Games
6850     Text Games with Sound
7000 Global Documentation
7100   General Documentation
7400   Periodicals and Misc Documentation
8000 Administration
8100   General Administration
8110     Booting and OS Installation
8111       Booting
8112       OS Installation and Rescue
8120     User ID
8130     Process Administration
8140     Filesystems and Disks
8141       Ext2FS and General Filesystem Control
8143       CD-ROMs
8145       Floppy Disks
8146       Alternate Filesystems
8147       RAID and Voluming
8148       Hard-disk Partitioning and Device Control
8149       SCSI
8150     The Kernel
8151       Kernel Control and Management of Central Hardware
8152       Prevalent Hardware-management Subsystems
8153       System Logging
8155       Kernel Source
8160     User Accounts
8190     Other General Administration
8200   Debian Packaging and Development
8210     Deb Installation
8211       Dpkg
8212       APT
8215       Deb Scanning and Finding
8217       Other Deb Installation
8240     Deb Installation Support
8241       General Deb Installation Support
8242       Debconf
8243       Debhelper
8247       Misc Deb Installation Support
8250     Debian Development
8251       General Debian Development
8252       Maintainer Authentication
8254       LSB
8257       Other Debian Development
8260     On-line Debian Resources
8270     Deb Miscellany
8280     Debian-installation Integrity Assurance
8400   Foreign Operating Systems
8500   General Services
8600   Network Foundation and Services
8610     TCP/IP
8611       General TCP/IP
8612       Basic TCP/IP Monitoring and Diagnostics
8613       Further TCP/IP Monitoring and Diagnostics
8614       ICMP, Ping and Traceroute
8615       Sockets
8616       TCP/IP Encryption
8617       Misc TCP/IP
8618       IPv6
8620     Other Network Foundation
8622       Basic DNS
8623       Further DNS
8624       LDAP
8628       Superservice
8629       Service/Protocol Identification
8630     User Authentication
8631       PAM
8632       Radius
8633       Kerberos
8634       SASL
8637       Other User Authentication
8650     Mail Transport
8651       Mail Transport Agents
8653       Mail Filtering
8654       Spam
8655       Mailing Lists
8657       Other Mail Transport
8658       Mailbox Service
8670     Web Service
8671       Apache
8672       Other Web Service
8675       Zope
8678       CGI
8680     Distributed Filesystems
8681       NFS
8682       AFS
8687       Other Distributed Filesystems
8690     Multicasting and Adaptive Communications
8700   Network Control
8710     General Network Control
8720     Security
8730     SNMP / DMI
8740     Bootp / DHCP
8750     Gateway and Routing
8751       General Gateway and Routing
8752       Tunneling, Masquerade and Gateway-firewalling
8754       Redundant Hosts and High-availability Networking
8755       Virtual Private Networking
8757       Misc Gateway and Routing
8770     Misc Network Control
8780     Network-device Control and Communications
8781       Ethernet Control
8782       Modem Control and Communications
8787       Control and Communications for Other Network Devices

--=20
Thaddeus H. Black
508 Nellie's Cave Road
Blacksburg, Virginia 24060, USA
+1 540 961 0920, t@b-tk.org

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