Re: Version-dependent Web Sentinel (was: Re: Last call before metapackage creation for Wheezy)

[Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu>]

[CC to debian-blends because it is related]

Hi Michael,

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 01:12:23PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 09:58:41AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > In contrast to the metapackage creation process (which was the topic of
> > my initial mail) the web pages you are linking to above are part of the
> > Blends web sentinel and updated daily and thus show a current snapshot
> > of all packages in Debian Science (independently from the distribution -
> > so also from unstable, experimental, etc. and even if packages are in
> > the NEW queue or people are just working in VCS these can be listes in
> > according sections). 
> 
> I consider this a bug (or rather missing feature), not a feature.  I
> think it would be very valuable to have a version of the web sentinels
> for the wheezy release, which (i) only covers packages in wheezy (ii)
> does not change over time.  This would make it easier to point users at
> a canonical location.  For example, we have some packages which included
> metadata like "Please cite: Foo, version 3.21" - having the correct
> wheezy version in there would be nice.
> 
> For the special case of the wheezy release, I guess copying the pages to
> a static location would be enough.  In general, some more
> version-awareness would be nice but probably not worth the effort (or
> possible at all).

While this version awareness was never in my mind for the web sentinel I
agree that you have some point here.  With the current approach how the
pages are rendered it is not very simple to realise however, you might
have noticed the GSoC project[1] I did register and it would be really
great if there would be some co-mentor for it.  Chances are good that I
might focus on my initial ideas and there should be some new blood
involved.  So everybody feel free to register as co-mentor.

Kind regards

       Andreas.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects#Enhancing_Debian_Blends_web_sentinel

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