apt-rpm roadmap

[Panu Matilainen]

Just some food for thought - here are some things I have in mind for
apt-rpm future. The only thing set in stone is that I want to have a
bugfix release in a reasonably short timeframe because it's inevitable
that there are some issues lurking in all the new code from repomd and
multilib support (some already found and fixed, surely there are others
still). Everything else is debatable :)

Short-term:
* A bugfix release - lorg3.1:
  - fix any remaining bugs found in repomd, make the code more rebust
  - fix any remaining bugs found, caused by repomd changes
  - fix serious compiler warnings (such as type-punning warnings
    from old rpm header handling)
* get Synaptic working properly

Mid-term
* Next "new feature"-release:
  - review and merge useful patches from altlinux apt
  - review and merge useful bits from debian-apt 0.6.x if any
  - make repository pinning work with repomd [1]
  - improved apt-cache viewing (just compare 'yum list' and
    'apt-cache pkgnames') and other misc "cosmetical" things
  - continued code cleanup
  - see if there are any low-hanging fruits for optimizing repomd 

Long-term (lorg5 and beyond):
* Introduce proper repository configuration into apt
  - per-repo settings such as signature checking, proxy config...
  - mirror handling
  - easy runtime switching of enabled/disabled repositories
  - cannot be sanely done with sources.list format - going to be a big
    hassle wrt Synaptic and other apt-based software!
* Integrated package signature checking (auto-import based on repo setup
etc)
* Stop munging downloaded package names, download cache reorganization
* Investigate further optimization possibilities especially with repomd
  (midlevel caches etc)
* Drop support for ancient rpm versions to get rid of LOTS of #ifdef's
and ugly code, make better use of the "new" rpmlib API
* Continued general code cleanups
* Reformat the whole codebase for readability + consistency?
* Work with libapt-front folks for better APT API
  - make it work with apt-rpm
  - make sure it takes rpm's requirements into account
  - help design + implement the API

I'm pretty sure I've forgotten some things from here I've had in mind
and things already discussed with other people (more or less in
private), please fill in and feel free to comment, add new ideas etc.

	- Panu -