Re: [Feature idea] Adding wikidata, wikipedia & screenshot-url fields to package-recipes

[Pjotr Prins]

On Thu, Nov 01, 2018 at 10:44:19AM +0100, swedebugia wrote:
>    Also to help us to associate new and existing packages with
>    wikidata-entries we could devise a guile-programmed way to associate
>    wikidata-entries to existing package objects and perhaps use this to
>    populate new package-recipes created with guix import
> 
>    Guix would then be the first package manager to both be completely free
>    of proprietary software and to leverage knowledge from Wikidata and WP.
> 
>    What do you think?

Absolutely the way forward. Totally excited you want to run with this!

Wikidata is linked data and dry and by using it we can share between
distros and software building projects (conda, easybuild etc.). It
scales because the software maintainers themselves will be encouraged
to update project information - such as a reference to a mailing list
- which is the only way to really keep up-to-date in a scalable way.
Wikipedia will use that information too. Wikidata is DRY.

People don't realise it, but in science to find the right tools for
the job is often a challenge. Wikidata will help us create sections
for tools that address certain tasks. For example variant calling in
sequencing data. I and others here have a direct stake in solving this
problem. This meta-information does not belong in Guix, so we need a
place to handle it. When you have a proof-of-concept we can even
consider writing a paper about it.

Will you join our Guix event at FOSDEM? This would be an interesting
working group. I know also a few people outside Guix who will be
interested.

Pj.