Requiring DOAP instead of MAINTAINERS file

["Olav Vitters" <ovitters gmail com>]

Hello,

Summary: I'd like replace the MAINTAINERS requirement by doap files.
Comments welcome.

Currently project information is spread thoughout various systems. The
maintainers are available in MAINTAINERS files, developers in AUTHORS,
the description is possibly in either Bugzilla or some README file,
etc. I'd like to make use of DOAP files for this.

See for example the usage of DOAP on projects.apache.org:
 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk/doap_Ant.rdf
 * http://projects.apache.org/projects/ant.html

Examples of what is in a DOAP file:
 * maintainers
 * long description
 * releases
 * homepage / download link
 * bugtracker link ()
 * repository info (SVN + viewvc)
And others:
 * short description
 * mailing lists
 * various kinds of contributors
 * programming language
 * category
 * etc

The intention at the moment is to just make these DOAP files
available. I don't plan to create something like projects.apache.org
in the near future. This for every module in svn.gnome.org. I have a
partial script that I want to expand to include as much info as I can
possibly can add automatically (everything until the 'and others'
above).

My preference is to create some new repository and include the doap
files there ('doap'). However, to make things easier I don't plan on
storing the full doap file there. It will have something like
'$module.rdf.in', that will be transformed into a $module.rdf on some
site.
After the conversion I plan on requiring such a doap file, and
removing the MAINTAINERS requirement. The current /trunk/MAINTAINERS
requirement means you cannot replace /trunk with a branch by just
using 'svn mv' (as at one moment /trunk won't exist). With having the
doap file in another repository, the problem is only restricted to
that repository.

Note: There is a plan for the new www.gnome.org to contain doap files
as well. See http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/GnomeProducts. SO perhaps
at one point the doap files are used to the www.gnome.org CMS.

Things that could use doap:
 * moap (https://thomas.apestaart.org/moap/trac)
 * maintainer.py (http://developer.imendio.com/projects/misc/maintainer)
 * Mango sync script (instead of /trunk/MAINTAINERS files)
 * Bugzilla (cron job that updates e.g. homepage link)

Note:
The doap repository will have strict pre-commit checks. Ensuring a
valid doap file with enough information. Also I might restrict
changing the maintainer section to the current maintainers.

The doap files can include 'foaf' stuff to provide maintainer
information. I'm not exactly sure what to do there. If you are a
maintainer for 10 projects I don't think you'll ever update that info.
However, I cannot just put info from LDAP in there as that often
contains the full name. Doap does allow using hashing for the email
address. ATM I don't want to add anything other than the userid. Maybe
the full name taken from the MAINTAINERS file.
Perhaps I'll create foaf files in the doap respository (e.g. the doap
only contains usernames and mixes it with the foaf files, allowing
people to change their info easily). Although I really rather use LDAP
for this, but I can always change that after Mango allows people to
change their details.

Oh, and I'd really like to link install-module with the doap files as
well. E.g., you release a new tarball and a while later that release
is added to the doap file (requires the tarball name to be the same as
the SVN module..).

Does this sound like a good plan?

Regards,
Olav