Re: `du' control files
Just to be clear: the trivial perl script was a demonstration that if
someone wants to test such a tool, they can prototype it simply by
running over a batch of actual debs and *then* come back and say what
data is useful. Remember also that du is only a reflection of the
blocking on the developer's disk -- not of how much space it will
actually take on the user's installation, if they have a larger or
smaller allocation unit (not likely, but possible, and potentially
worth considering.)
Supplying an unspecified set of data in a random set of debs doesn't
particularly help anyone -- if deity or whoever comes up with a useful
tool, they'll *also* have much better information on what data they
want, and odds are that the current du output isn't *quite* it... and
thus we will have another compatibility issue. If we simply leave
them out now, we don't have to deal with them until there *is* a use;
and the idea Guy mentioned (of putting this all up on the web site)
does *not* particularly need coordinated work.
In fact, a simple "how much space will this debian install take" could
be done as a cgi or javafrob, where the user selects packages and
cooks up a result based on a dump like that (hmm, similar to the way
Packages files are built perhaps.) Ah well, if I weren't so far behind...
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