On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:44:35 -0700, Anthony Bryan <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 1:06 PM, Neil M. <[email protected]> wrote: >> A couple of things on that. >> >> Firstly, Zero Install seems to have an architecture already designed to >> do >> that (compile and install) for multiple platforms. Their main website >> seems to be down at the moment but Wikipedia has a good overview here: >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Install >> >> Secondly Appupdater has the capability to run arbitrary commands to >> "install" a product, so this could include the compile instructions or a >> ruby script (for example) to compile/install as well. >> >> The main differences are that Zero Install is source oriented and has a >> more robust XML format (but no Metalink), Appupdater is oriented to >> distributing binaries and of course already has Metalink support. >> Appupdater may have issues figuring out what is installed if the hashes >> differ when compiled on different systems for whatever reason, but >> multiple >> hashes for a particular compiled file is allowed. >> >> I think really the issue with package managers is that they all have >> their >> own formats for the data and metadata, if we can express that >> independently >> in some type of XML we can easily generate whatever data formats are >> needed >> to be backward compatible. ZeroInstall+Metalink+Appupdater parts should >> be >> a good start. > > the first part of what I'm talking about and what the Gentoo package > maintainer was looking for is basically a command line program which > checks for new versions of programs. > > all it would do is download some Metalinks from a list of addresses, > and alert if there was a new version. > > $version-check > aria2: 1.15.1 -> 1.15.2 > curl: 7.27.0 -> 7.28.0 > libmetalink: 0.1 -> 0.1.2 > > > it could be run once a day, week, etc. now package maintainers would > know to update their packages. as part of the packaging process, the > next step could be specific to Appupdater, Homebrew, Fedora, Gentoo, > etc... and download/verify the source & do a test build (we won't > worry about that). > > the only problem is only curl has automated metalink [1] as part of > their release process. but, we can start w/ that, add aria2 & > libmetalink as a demo & show that other programs could do the same. > > [1] http://curl.haxx.se/metalink.cgi?curl=tar.gz and using > <version>7.28.0</version> from it. > >
I see now. As part of the Appupdater "Server Tools" I built something like this. Basically I made a "crawler" that checks download pages for given applications and notifies me when the version number changes. It can also automatically generate Metalinks based on that. This feeds into other things and in many cases Appupdater packages can be completed automated in this way. Neil -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Metalink Discussion" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/metalink-discussion?hl=en.
