[Neurodebian-upstream] PyNN + NeuroTools packages

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Fri, 03 Dec 2010, Yury V. Zaytsev wrote:
> Sorry for the late reply, but I guess you had other things to do in the
> meantime anyway :-)

yeah ;-)

> For the particular case of distributing runnable NEST it is probably
> worth it, so it would be nice just to have to re-master your images by
> throwing extra packages out from the list.

or adding ones to the list ;)
we already moved 1 step forward in "live":
https://github.com/neurodebian/neurodebian/tree/master/live/
and alpha .iso image (could also be just dd-ed to a usb stick) is available from
http://neuro.debian.net/debian/live/

for tune-ups 
https://github.com/neurodebian/neurodebian/blob/master/live/auto/config
needs to be modified to point to your mirror and adjust list of package
lists (or just additional packages via --packages), and then it is just
a matter of

cd live
lb config
sudo lb build

iirc ;)

> > coverage of NeuroDebian software.  Or we could provide a collection of
> > themed live CDs (NeuroImaging, NeuralSimulators, etc), but I am not sure
> > if it is worth it, since everyone probably has DVDs these days.
> I know quit a bit of users who are working on LiveCD in production,
> because they are not very much Linux savvy and compiling stuff is over
> their head. They won't be happy to re-download the whole DVD every new
> NEST release.

well, for those the ideal is VirtualMachine so they do not have to
re-download entire DVD for every update ;-)  but of cause it is
conditioned on NEST becoming seamlessly available as well

> > research (unless I am employed by the corporation so it would be in
> > their interests to keep me effective, which is not the case obviously).
> It's nice to know at least somebody living in the perfect world...
> Unfortunately, it's not the case for everybody and some actually are
> employed by such corporations. 

then see in the parenthesis ;)  what I meant more is "by 3rd party
corporations who do not care about my research" ;)

> > I am still not sure how you are not violating their license.... where
> > could I checkout your MIT-licensed packages which do not distribute any
> > NEST code?  Are they downloader/installer packages (e.g. like I have
> > done for MIPAV)?
> http://git.zaytsev.net/?p=nest-packaging.git;a=summary
> There is only a debian folder inside. 

liar! ;) there is also graphics and reference! ;) 

> and re-build the binary package on your own. In the future, the binary
> packages for a certain number of distributions will be provided by the
> Initiative itself, which, of course, does not break the agreement.

I guess you have done most of the work for them already with your
packaging, so it should be really easy for them.

but while they are working on that, why don't you automate it further
... I just registered so I see how it could be done now since every
registered user gets a UID, so   may be you could follow the path
of

googleearth-package

so upon install/upgrade it asks users for their UID, fetches NEST sources,
applies your packaging, builds the package(s), installs the package(s)?

then we could probably even serve it from neuro.debian repository... ?
and it would become much more convenient for users I guess (if works
reliably) and indeed seamlessly available...


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