[Rule-list] Need for an application database

[Marco Fioretti]

Hello, all

I am adding some new material to the web pages, for all of you to
enjoy... It shouldbe online by tonight (GMT +1 zone).

While doing this, however, I have realized something else.
We badly need an online application database to work on the
application selection side of the project. What I mean is some web
page where we list, for each candidate application:

        home page
        download link
        RPM: exists or not?
        maintainers
        RAM/disk space needs
        dependencies, i.e. other packages needed, HOW MUCH SPACE
                DO THEY TAKE, if they are already in by some other
                reason, etc..
        link to documentation
        user comments/feedback on bugs, performance, whatever
                (this would also make them searchable much more easily
                than brwsing the mailing list archives)
        pointer to known bugs/security issues?
        
        your suggestions here.

This tool should help us to:

        find out how much adding one app weights on the whole system
        pre-install analysis: "Will this mix of packages fit in my 200
        MB HDD? Let's query the RULE app database"

        <DREAM MODE ON>select all the applications I need *way before
        install* five minutes at a time during lunch break in the
        office, and generate a kickstart file or something so that my
        particular package selection will happen automatically tonight while I
        have dinner, with miniconda/slinky reading that file.

        (for the record, this is an old dream of mine: I proposed it
        for the first time on the mandrake 5.1 users list...., but
        this might just be the right time...)
        </DREAM MODE OFF>

        again, your suggestions here

Back to reality: I know how to extract much of the information above
by automated smart queries of the rpm database, but the savannah web site
doesn't support PHP/MySQL. Hence, I hereby ask for:

        some pious soul that can work out the php/mysql code for this:
        I can do it myself too, but almost anybody else here is likely to do it
        better than me.

        another pious soul hosting that database. Eventually we will
        probably have to migrate the whole site (not the project page) to some 
host supporting
        PHP/Mysql, but right now this section would be enough.


        Ciao,

                Marco Fioretti
                RULE project leader

-- 
Don't tell me how hard you work.  Tell me how much you get done.
                                                James J. Ling