[ckan-discuss] Package Relationships - remove?

Thu Aug 25 11:06:33 BST 2011

On 25 August 2011 09:34, David Read <david.read at okfn.org> wrote:
> On 24 August 2011 21:47, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
>> I'm +1 to remove.
>>
>> Right now this isn't buying anything and we probably want something
>> different point. I do think that:
>>
>> a) At some point I'm pretty sure we will need things like "depends on"
>> or "requires"
>
> This was your original reasoning for the feature, and it's not
> happened. What do you see changing in the future?

Actual integration with packaging tools / data management tools. But
right now that isn't there. Hence I said: "at some point" (and should
have added "in the future").

>> b) there is a good use case right now for a more general form of
>> "connection" which isn't just between datasets but is e.g. from
>> dataset to external visualization or policy paper. E.g. it would be
>> really nice to say "this government report at url X uses data from
>> this dataset" or this visualization at url X uses this dataset (thanks
>> to Sam Smith for emphasizing the importance of this to me a few months
>> ago)
>
> Great to have a fourth suggestion of a relationship type. But
> visualisations are still simply Resources. I made the point that we
> could generalise Relationships to include Resources, but that is a
> subtle shift, not one that will suddenly create demand for this
> feature.

It would create demand from me right now. I'm also not sure that make
visualizations into resources is what you want though you can do that
...

>> c) For derivation and transformation relationships (definitely going
>> to be important) we need to include resources not just
>> datasets/packages (maybe *just* resources).
>
> You started by saying get rid of Relationships and spend the rest of
> this email arguing *for* something very similar! ;-)

I've argued for deprecating and removing the current relationship
system. Item (a) was for the future. Item (b) was about the fact that
we do want a simple way to link to other material and I'm not clear
this is resources (if it is then item (b) goes away which is great :-)
). Item (c) was that we would need to include resources in any future
"relationship" style set up (but is not needed now).

Rufus