* Daniel Carrera (daniel.carr...@theingots.org) [090529 19:55]:
> Btw, if we do go ahead with this "meta CPAN" idea, it'll be important to
> divide the network into self-contained groups. Earlier I used the word
> "target". Alternatively we could say "platform". Example platforms could
> include:
>
> Perl 5 <-- Perl 5 source code.
> Perl 6 <-- Perl 6 source code.
> Parrot <-- Parrot assembly.
> Lua <-- Lua source code.
> Nokia.bin <-- Compiled binary for the Nokia handheld.
> Elf-ia64 <-- Compiled binary in ELF format for the IA64 architecture.
>
> You get the idea... Mirrors pick which platforms they'll hold.
Now we are getting somewhere. A "mirror" doing only a part is a bit
strange. A mirror doing half-work is more a filter.
So, if we replace your term "platform" into my term "archive", and your
"meta CPAN archive" into my "CPAN6", then we are on the same track...
I call it "CPAN6 servers invite selected archives on their system",
where you like to say "CPAN mirrors copy selected platforms/targets of
the main archive"
And the next consideration: when we have a piece of software which
administers Perl5 or Perl6 or Nokia.bin or Elf. Why stop there?
What is the overlap? It is basically all just some blob of data with
some associated meta-data to search and retreive the blobs. It is only
the client side install tool which looks into the content of the package.
Why not allow pure pod releases? A small step to documents in any other
format. Why not share holiday pictures? Also just a blob of data with
some meta-data.
Those final steps changed my world. Where Windows has a "My Pictures"
directory, how do we organize "Our Pictures"? Just a hack: Flickr or
a shared NFS disk. And "Our Software?": CPAN. And there are document
management systems, ftp-servers, linux distributions, ... etc etc...
And all facilitate creating collections of a certain type.
People are collectors by evolution, for their own or for a group. It is
simple to organize a private collection on computers, but for all group
collections on computers, we only have hacks. Studying different kinds
of collections have led me to a relatively small set of features we need.
What will we share, with whom, how do we distribute, where do we store
it what does it need additionally. Add some modern needs as security,
fail-over and license tracking and see my meta-data design.
The surprise is that I have not been able to find any software where you
can start collections as general basic infrastructure. On the level of
network file-system. A totally new application of Internet. The beauty
of our community collection in CPAN can be extended to benefit all
computer users. That is where my CPAN6 is about. CPAN to the power 6.
Oh, maybe it will also be used for the Perl6 module collection. That's
to the Perl people to decide.
--
Regards,
MarkOv
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Overmeer MSc MARKOV Solutions
m...@overmeer.net soluti...@overmeer.net
http://Mark.Overmeer.net http://solutions.overmeer.net
