RESTful API to provide Drupal.org module data

@theneonlobster and I are interested in building a module that significantly improves the UI for Drupal module management.

Essentially, we would like to model it off of the Wordpress approach to plugin management, which:

• Allows users to browse a list of available (new) modules from the comfort of their site's administrative area
• Sort modules based on various critiera
• Install and update modules from the administrative area

Ideally, this module would mature and become part of Drupal core. We feel that would be a great leap forward for Drupal, flattening the Drupal learning curve, and thereby making Drupal more accessible to a greater portion of the public.

Here's our blocker: we currently have no way to consume Drupal.org module data (apart from screen scraping). It would be ideal if we could consume module data via a RESTful API, provided by Drupal.org. Useful data would include:

• Project name
• Description
• Major versions
• URLs for repository, zip, and tar.gz files
• Issue statistics: # of issues, # open; # of bug reports, # open
• Maintenance & Development status
• Project resources
• Images
• Taxnomy terms
• Author
• Maintainers
• Commit history (possibly accessible through other means)

I'd like to open the topic for discussion, and (hopefully) begin the process of making this a reality. We are both very willing to contribute (or spearhead) an effort to provide this data on Drupal.org. More specifically:

• Who should we talk to?
• Does the community think that this is a good idea?
• Can we be involved in creating a Drupal.org API that provides this data?
• If we're going to submit a patch for the Drupal.org, how do we access the codebase to roll it against?
• Details of implementation need to be sorted: should we construct a custom Services resource, or provide data via another vehicle?

All input and support is welcome!