Bug#976402: Proposed official virtual packages - todo and todo.txt

[Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org>]

David Steele writes:
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 1:15 PM Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org> wrote:
>
>> What about devtodo ?
>>
>> Reading your summary, it seems that the todo.txt virtual package
>> is well specified, but the todo one is not.
>>
>> Do you envision to have packages depending on todo and then use the
>> todo binary ?
>>
>
> No. This is a means to allow topydo and todotxt-cli to use "todo" without
> crowding devtodo. I believe this meets the definition of a virtual package
> in the Policy.

Given topydo just provides/conflicts with devtodo to provide the "todo"
binary, this seems to violate Policy 10.1 "Binaries" unless they provide
the same functionality.

Different "todo" managers should be coinstallable as different users
might want to use different ones.

> I do see the desirability for packages to be able to Depend on
> todo.txt, with an expectation of the command line format beneath
> (e.g. support for a todo.txt schema).

>From the messages I thought todo.txt is a standard *text* format, but
now you say it is a standard command-line interface?  What can they do
if they depend on todo.txt?

Is there an example package that would do this?

> # Miscellaneous
>
> virtualPackages:
>   - name: todo
>     description: a command-line task management utility

This seems to imply I can manage tasks from the command-line like "todo
new-task eat breakfast"?  What interface to do so is provided?  Can I
call "todo <file>", "todo", "todo new-task <task>", ...?

Should emacs provide a "todo" script to open ~/TODO (with say org-mode)?

If it is just to have "todo" open a user-chosen program they like to
manage their todo lists with, why not just have the user add a "todo"
alias to their shell or $HOME/bin?

>   - name: todo.txt
>     description: task management based on a standard free-form text format

This description seem to vague to me: it doesn't even mention what file
format.  Does a package providing todo.txt provide any specific user
interface?  Emacs can edit todo.txt files: would it qualify (even
without a "todo" executable in $PATH)?

Ansgar