[Bioperl-l] BioPerl CPAN

[Jason Stajich]

> > The "ownership" is not a very relevant concept there.
>
> The easiest (as in "the smallest number of moving parts") solution
> would be one person to be selected as the "lead developer" for a module
> and he/she would be the only one uploading new releases.
>
This is currently Ewan- it works okay for the monolithic release.

> It is possible for a CPAN module owner to grant admin rights (upload)
> for a module of his/hers to other CPAN authors.  But that is perhaps
> not a good solution of there are really several (>3) authors working
> on the same module.  (This is usually used only in the case where the
> original authour is temporarily/until further notice busy, but agrees
> to someone else maintaing the module for a while.) I suggest falling
> back to the "one lead developer" model in the case there are really
> *many* developers.
>
> How is BioPerl developed?  Is there are a central repository (like
> CVS) or is it by many independent developers and developer groups?
> I'm certain if you feel like a central place would be a good place
> e.g. perl.org can arrange for a CVS repository.
>
http://cvs.open-bio.org - I don't think we want to change the way we
currently do this.  In fact I would even advocate we setup a separate CVS
repository for people to put in biopan related stuff s.t. people can still
collaborate.

> One Good Thing coming out of using CPAN (instead of creating a BPAN)
> would also be the rt.perl.org-- a central bug database for all the
> CPAN modules.
>
Sure - we're using bugzilla right now because rt wasn't all that mature
when we set things up.  We've already migrated from jitterbug - so I'd
prefer not to migrate to rt unless there is a huge advantage (or other
people really prefer it) to this .

> For the packaging-- the Bundle:: concept would probably be really,
> really useful for you.  Take a look at
> http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html#How_make_bundle
>
We currently have a Bundle::BioPerl to install the dependancies for
Bioperl and this has worked well I think.

> Also, since you will be making sweeping changes to the existing
> bioperl structure, the modules 'if' and 'only' could maybe also
> going to be useful:
> http://search.cpan.org/author/ILYAZ/if-0.01000001/if.pm
> http://search.cpan.org/author/INGY/only-0.26/only.pm
>
> > For us it is important that anyone, at least in the core group,
> > can go and make sweeping changes that affect large number of modules.
>
> I think before you start uploading anything you really need to sit
> down and hash thoroughly the new structures and dependencies.
>

My interpretation was that this was going to be for auxiallary projects
that were not part of the bioperl core code.  These would depend on
bioperl (or not at all) and allow people to get their code out there
sooner.  I am not sure I want to break up the toolkit into these pieces
because of the amount of confusion about where the boundaries are going
to be.  I interpreted Nat's proposal to be a way for people to get their
own code out there sooner without it being blessed by 'bioperl' since our
release cycle is about every 6 months.

-jason

> > 	-Heikki
> >
>
>

--
Jason Stajich
Duke University
jason at cgt.mc.duke.edu