In-Reply-To: <20080101.204445.26131271.andrewdo@frdcsa.org>
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0801020931330.18955@wr-linux02>
References: <20080101.204445.26131271.andrewdo@frdcsa.org>
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Subject: Re: Debian-AI
From: Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>
To: Andrew Dougherty <andrewdo@frdcsa.org>
cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:49:39 +0100 (CET)

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Andrew Dougherty wrote:

> As a result of this, it has been my goal to assemble a comprehensive
> software ontology of existing systems and package as many of them as
> possible, ordered in such a way that the new packages can improve the
> automatic creation of packages.

I startet building Debian packages about 10 years ago and in no single
case I had the impression that this process could be done automatically.
You might be lucky if you try to package some kind of standardized
archives like CTAN or CPAN, but I doubt that this is possible if
you are picking random FOSS from the net.

> Would there be any interest in a Debian-AI sub-project?

It sounds like you should think about joining the Custom Debian
Distribution effort:

    http://wiki.debian.org/CustomDebian
    http://people.debian.org/~tille/cdd/

If you are using the CDD tools you could gain some profit for your
users by technically grouping set of packages to takss.  We have also
automatic tools to document what we just have inside official Debian
and what is on our todo list like for instance

    http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/tasks/bio.php

(Please note that the later URL is just a preview of the web tools
  that are currently developed and once they are bug free there will
  be an official announcement.  It's just to give you an idea of the
  profit you might have if you are building an official CDD.)

Kind regards and good luck for your project

         Andreas.

-- http://fam-tille.de