Repository feature proposal

[Peter Backlund]

Hi.

I've been thinking a bit of how to make it easier for people to use
repositories as opposed to downloading single pieces of software from
the web. Normally, if you come from another operating system, you're
used to going to a website, downloading a single installation program,
installing it and you're done.

So let's say some project or even some company wants to distribute
software for Linux (Fedora to be specific). The best way would of course
be if they set up a repository with their stuff, since downloading,
installation _and_ automatic update checking can be performed within a
single application (apt/yum/up2date). 

>From an (inexperienced) end user perspective, it's not really practical
to edit some file in a text editor. It's the weak link in the gui chain.
Now, my idea is to create some sort of file format describing the
repository, that can be "imported" by the software management program
(up2date/r-c-packages). That way, you can publish one such repository
description file on your website, that users download an import (or even
open directly from in the browser),  and then all your software can be
accessed from the same management tool. Perhaps one could create
"repository rpms", similar to how public GPG keys are imported and
stored in the rpm db?                            

Advantages over even the Windows(r)(tm)(c) way are:
- Automatic update checking.
- Consistent installation (and removal) procedure across all
applications.

An example of how another distribution handles 3:rd party repositories
can be found at 

http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/

It boils down to "paste these commands in a root terminal". This is a
very small step up from the traditional "put this in your source.list".

So, what do you all think about this?

/Peter