Edgy Third Party Package Management

[Dan Kegel]

On 6/28/06, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> I'd like to summarize where things stand on this subject post-Dapper.
> Today, we have the following vehicles for third parties who wish to provide
> their software in an Ubuntu-friendly form:
> ...
> - Provide packages in a third-party repository which can be registered with
>   app-install-data and conveniently accessed within Add/Remove, where
>   an EULA can be displayed prior to installation
>
> The primary piece which is missing is the glue from the browser to the last
> item above, to allow vendors to publish useful links to their repository on
> their website.  Users following such links would be sent directly to
> gnome-app-install, where the usual workflow of enabling the repository and
> installing packages should be used.
>
> The implementation in g-a-i seems to use multiple files to hold all of the
> data about a repository, but it should be straightforward to extend to
> handle a single file, which I think would satisfy your use case along with
> the above glue.

I'm very interested in this.  I would like to be able to post a simple link
on http://picasa.google.com saying "click here to add our repository".
Now, I could get this by making the link download a .deb that did the
needed dirty work itself; several repositories provide such metapackages
already, I think.  But it'd be nice if it were more transparant.

Also, is there a way to browse by repository in the Add/Remove Software
gui?   Last I checked it wasn't really easy, but I may be mistaken.
- Dan