[Debtags-devel] Proposed Debtags goals for Etch

Thaddeus H. Black t at b-tk.org
Mon Jul 18 22:34:45 UTC 2005


> I don't know much about the package file format - but does this mean
> that the Tags: field can be set by the maintainer now? If so, the
> primary goal must be, to mostly stabelize the vocabulary.

I agree.  Ben, you're right.  But we're simply not there yet.  The
vocabulary will not be stablizable for another year to year and a half.
The vocabulary is not nearly mature.  Thoroughly tagging thousands of
packages more promises to reveal the need for hundreds of tags more, and
even to eliminate some of the existing tags.

As long scheduled, I'm getting to work on this problem as fast as I can.
My schedule remains to tie the last debram ends up within four months
after sarge's release.  Then, as planned, I mean to hit the
tagging/vocabulary problem hard.  Florian has expressed a welcome
intention to hit the same problem about the same time.  I hope that he
does.  If so, I think that we will do well.  But the time for freezing
the vocabulary has not come yet.

I believe that this implies the following sequence of events.

(1) Maintainers tag their packages now.

(2) While tagging, some maintainers discover the need for new tags,
which we add as appropriate.

(3) As etch nears release, we freeze the etch vocabulary.

(4) Maintainers revise their tags, based on the final etch vocabulary.

(5) Etch releases.

(6) About six months following etch's release, we freeze the etch+1
vocabulary.

(7) At this point, we will have achieved the stability you want.

I do not see any practical way of getting there faster than this,
without heavy cost to debram's quality and utility.  Do you?  The
orderly thing to do would be to freeze the vocabulary now, but debtags
is not yet ready for such order.  The accelerating tagging process
promises heavy feedback to vocabulary design.

Order?  Soon.  Next year.  Not yet.

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