Re: How much interest in a "debian-science.org" repository?

[Brett Viren <bv@bnl.gov>]

So, it seems there is much call for a debian-science unofficial
repository.  Great!

A few things in response:

1) Distribution types.  I think it is best to keep the standard
main/non-free/contrib splitting.  This splitting was invented to make
clear the free-ness of the code and not the types of packages.  We may
be asking for a lot of extra effort if we break that model.  We might
consider other types such as "no licence but the author says it's
okay" (not sure how legal that is).  Also, this is something I need to
take very seriously as it would be a huge problem if I serve
copy-write infringing files.

2) Upload privileges.  I can't subject BNL to a potential
embarrassment due to serving packages with malicious code so
unauthenticated uploads can't be supported.  At the very least I think
we must take the same precautions as Debian does with their PGP keys.
This means face to face signing parties.  This is probably easier for
us w/in a particular scientific comunity that Debian as a whole since
we tend to naturally mingle more.  Maybe someone can look into other
distributed authentication mechanism that would be equivalent (eg grid
certs).

3) I'll check into the repository management tools mentioned.
However, as Kevin said this may take some time, so stay interested but
patient.

Regards,
-Brett.