Re: pkg_summary(5) and license restrictions

[Dieter Baron <dillo%KD119105101110.ppp-bb.dion.ne.jp@localhost>]

In article <s93d4nfbv0u.fsf%chen.chizhovka.net@localhost> Aleksey wrote:
: According to pkg_info(1)

:      -X Print summary information for each package.  The summary
:         format is described in pkg_summary(5).
:         ITS _PRIMARY USE IS TO CONTAIN ALL INFORMATION ABOUT THE
:         CONTENTS OF A (REMOTE) BINARY PACKAGE REPOSITORY NEEDED BY
:         PACKAGE MANAGING SOFTWARE.

: Unfortunately a few important fields are absent in pkg_summary(5):
:  NO_BIN_ON_CDROM
:  NO_BIN_ON_FTP

: All they are important to make a decision whether to put binaries to
: ftp:// of cdrom or not.

: Question 1)
: What do think about inclusion of these two variable values to
: pkg_summary(5)?

  Yes, that sounds reasonable.  I'll add them.

[...]
: The same question for sources - NO_SRC_ON_CDROM, NO_SRC_ON_FTP.

  I don't think that is important enough to include in a summary about
*binary* packages.

: Question 2)
: Is it possible to add/remove some variables to/from pkg_summary
: generated by 'pkg_info -X'?

  No, and I don't think it would be a good idea.  pkg_summary is a
public interface to a binary package repository.  Tools depend on this
information and the format it is in, and will depend even more heavily
on it in the future.  This should not be changed unilaterally.

  (Arguably, including extra variables from BUILD_INFO should be
relatively unproblematic.  However, any tool that requires them would
be unable to work with official binary package repositories.)

                                       yours,
                                       dillo