new metadata format for repositories

[seth vidal <skvidal phy duke edu>]

Hi all,
 As some of you know, I've been working on an xml format for a
repository of packages. I've been working on this with many other people
involved in pkg management tool development and repository maintenance.

Right now we've created a specification:
(http://linux.duke.edu/metadata/readme.metadata)

and I've written a program to create this format of files from a
directory of rpms:
http://linux.duke.edu/metadata/generate/createrepo-0.3.1.tar.gz

I know that work is being done to support this format in up2date, yum
and apt. It's not complete yet, but the goal of this is to make a format that 
all of the package mgmt tools can use and to remove the need for 3+ different
representations of same package metadata

Our goals were:
  bandwidth-light
  functional for dependency resolution
  functional for general queries
  standard format for metadata no matter what the package type (right
now .deb and rpm)

Take a look at the above program, run it against a set of packages and
see what bugs you can find.
I'd encourage anyone looking for explanations of the format to look at
the dtds and look at the mailing list archives:
https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/rpm-metadata/

let me know what is broken or not-quite-right.

people to thank:
Adrian Likins
Brent Fox
Jeff Licquicia
Jeff Johnson
Jeremy Katz
Russ Herrold
Panu Matilainen
John Daily
Peter Bowen
Joe Shaw
Daniel Veillard
Malcolm Treddinick
James Olin-Oden
Mark Hatle
Martin Michlmayr
Darrin Thompson
Matt Zimmerman
(this list compiled from the names of people who contributed to the
discussion on the mailing list, if I missed anyone, please let me know)


Thanks.
-sv