Publicly listed channels (was [PEAR-DEV] Considering package proposal: Cgiapp)

Matthew Weier O'Phinney wrote:

It *would* be nice to see an area on PEAR for listing alternate channels and PEAR-based applications/frameworks/what-have-you, particularly if code linked there were reviewed (somewhat) by PEAR developers.

One of the political tasks that PEAR needs to work out as PEAR 1.4.0 reaches maturity is how channels will be added to the official channel list. I suspect that it would be best if there was a simple form at pear.php.net. Something along these lines: What is your PEAR channel server? __________

Where can we email you?           __________

Please type this CAPTCHA [image] __________ Then, a small panel of pear devs could evaluate initial submissions, weeding out the spam entries we are bound to receive. If a channel is a legitimate PEAR channel, it would simply be added to the list of channels users get when they run the "update-channels" command. Having a public page listing channel servers and their summaries might be nice (this could be automated via a simple crob job that would update PEAR's own channel list and then print the summaries from each channel's channel.xml) Requirements for listing a channel at pear.php.net need to be worked out. I would recommend: - channel has a public browsable frontend like pear.php.net - channel has full support for the PEAR installer version 1.4.0 - channel has been around for at least 6 months and has at least 1 package with releases The last point is debatable, but I really think that young channels can get by with a few devoted followers and testers. Only established, mature channels should be listed at pear.php.net. Obviously, some leeway needs to be there for sites that have established backgrounds like horde and php-tools.net. Clearly, these sites have got stuff worked out, and might not need the 6 month window to prove their maturity :). The single most important thing we as PEAR folks can do is to be *non-restrictive* about channels. The only requirement for listing a channel must be that it works and is not distributing malicious code. Let the users decide whether a channel is worth investigating. Most will probably never change their default_channel to anything other pear.php.net/pecl.php.net, and that is just fine. The installer is designed so that you won't be distracted by other channels unless you want to be [1]. Greg [1] it occurs to me just now that the list-upgrades command shows "no upgrades available for channel XXX" which could be rather annoying if there are 100 channels and only the topmost one has any upgrades. I will try to mod this so that if a channel has no installed packages, nothing is displayed.