Librarian

SJ Klein and Michael Stone had a long chat about the requirements that must be satisfied by a process for getting content onto XOs. We've decided to call a mechanism implementing such process a "librarian".

Requirements

The requirements we identified included being able to:

• install the "most relevant" result or be able to show several probably-relevant results in response to simple-text queries.
• select language-appropriate content.
• distinguish between "stable" content, meaning content that no-one can improve any further and "unstable" content which is rapidly changing.
• remove installed content using standard Sugar mechanisms.
• update installed content if updates can be found.
• show related content, as defined by the content packager.
• prepare an XO for a piece of content, e.g. by examining the XO for required viewers and usefully responding to their absence (i.e. give a warning, give installation instructions, or actually acquire the needed software)

Design Thoughts

These requirements sound awfully close to those of traditional Linux package management systems like rpm and dpkg, though the way that we intend to manage the process of packaging content appears to be fairly different.