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Re: Packaging scientific datasets for Debian



On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 10:05:45AM -0400, Michael Hanke wrote:
> Dear Debian scientists,
> 
> 
> I want to resurrect the discussion about dataset packaging in Debian. I
> believe the latest state is reflected by this document:
> 
>   http://ftp-master.debian.org/wiki/projects/data/
> 
> Although it makes the impression that everything is already done, I
> don't know if that is actually true. Does anyone know about the current
> state of this effort?

I don't know.  But given that data.debian.org doesn't resolve, I'd
guess that nothing is set up.  The wiki page you reference suggests it
is an ftpmaster team consensus position, so I cc them now.  Maybe
someone there can chime in.


> Ideally, we could come up with a mini-policy for dataset packages. It
> should not be overengineered, but it might cover things like:
> 
> - package naming, e.g. 'dataset-<meaningful name>'
> - predictable and common location in the filesystem (maybe it should make
>   it easy for an admin to relocate all packaged datasets to a dedicated storage
>   device)
> - some grouping by purpose (although many datasets can be used for
>   different things) or type of data (MRI, pictures, sound
>   databases, genome, ...)

I like all these suggestions.  I don't have a strong position on how
to arrange the data, but my gut feeling is to use a single root under
which it is grouped by purpose as you suggest, leading to
/usr/share/data/<group>, for example.


Regards,
-Steve

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