Re: Opam package publication (was Re: [Caml-list] [ANN] beta-release of OPAM)

[Thomas Gazagnaire <thomas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Yes, I know, that was not the point. I was proposing a lighter process for a 
> package to be included in opam's default repository.  
> 
> As Alain mentioned, the current process is rather involved for package 
> developers --- but I disagree with his idea of an upload web interface.  

I agree that the current process is a little bit involved for people not very 
used to git and github. OPAM already has an very basic 'opam update' command 
which I'm quite keen to see improved if people found it necessary (eg. patches 
are very welcome).

> The idea is that package developers publish repos with their work and that 
> there's a kind of `import` or `copy` command in opam that allows to copy a 
> package from one repo to another (this could also be useful to make custom 
> repos). ocamlpro uses this command to transfer a package from the developer's 
> repo to the default repo.

Homebrew use the concept of 'taps' where people can register alternative 
repositories, which will contain domain-specific packages (ocaml uses to have 
one before being integrated in the main repo). Doing that for OPAM is (I think) 
a bit overkill. However, I'm happy to have a REPOSITORIES file at the root of 
OCamlPro/opam-repositories which lists the available repositories, and write a 
small script to automatically sync with these repo regularly. Feel free to add 
your repository in there, and I'll write the update script.

> This allows package users that are confident in a packager to use his repo 
> directly, and those that prefer to wait for the inclusion in opam default 
> repo to wait for it while minimizing the overall energy spent for all the 
> involved parties.  

Agreed, this sounds a good idea to me.

--
Thomas