Package Management
Watch this video for a good background.
See my website for more information. This is a placeholder for the future of package management.
This project makes Drupal development, site building, and deployment easier by providing package management. Packages consist of selected components and shared configurations; and can also include other packages. They are designed to be easy to install and adapt; they use configurations uploaded to a website and can integrate with other packages to help build a personalized configuration or a Drupal distribution.
For instance, someone can create a Blog Package, another person a Calendar Package, and yet another a Media Management Package on the Web UI. Then, another talented person can mash them up into his group’s 'DrupalCamp Gainesville 2009 Event Site'. That person's Event Site can become an Event package.
Software appliances have a similar model to virtual appliances that make use of scripted build systems. Virtual appliances are known for their ease of creation and vastly improved portability. This is a major improvement over repetitive configurations, much like what we still have today in Drupal. I believe that developers, site-builders, and users have all been unsatisfied by the current state of packaging and therefore haven’t been able to adopt the technology. I propose a new direction to satisfy all three groups by providing:
- a Base Distribution of an included set of interdependent tools that all later designs rely on
- a Builder for compiling them
- a Web UI for sharing configurations and building new/innovative ones on a common web site
