Re: [devel-ref] author/homepage in description

[Josip Rodin <joy@gkvk.hr>]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2002 at 05:00:33AM -0600, Adam DiCarlo wrote:
> > > Comments desired.
> > 
> > Perhaps it makes sense to think about all fields people would possible
> > want. The rpm format for example has a license field. Is that something
> > that people would like to see for deb as well?
> 
> Well, before I venture on this, is there a way we can store certain
> data in control.tar.gz or something but without bloating the Packages
> file?

But the packages.d.o web pages use exactly those files as input. :)

> It seems to me that the hugeness of the Packages file is one of the
> largest scalability constraints in the Debian archive (thinking of
> user download times here) and we need to be very respectful of keeping
> its size down.  There are perhaps some fields users would always want
> in the normal context (md5sum and all that) and some which are rather
> specialized (and the homepage thing goes in this latter category).

Since the extended description is still there, and it's unrestrained as far
as size goes, it doesn't really matter much if we ban further one-liner
fields like one for URL...

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.