[ckan-discuss] sudo apt-get install data-pkg

Mon Sep 5 12:20:56 BST 2011

Hi Pablo,

I think this is a really interesting idea -- and in fact a large part
of the motivation for developing CKAN originally (we wanted to
supported dataset development, deployment and sharing as efficiently
as things like debian do for code).

We coined the idea of a 'data package (datapkg)', and here's the
current page on the wiki:

<http://wiki.ckan.net/Data_Package>

I did originally investigate using apt directly but then sought to
build on the python install tool as that was likely to be easier to
develop and more cross platform. The current tool called datapkg works
well and will get files on and off ckan. See:

<http://packages.python.org/datapkg/>

Source code is here. We are also using datapkg in building a local GUI
for CKAN which we are calling the DataDeck:

<http://wiki.ckan.net/DataDeck>

Rufus

On 4 September 2011 11:22, Pablo Mendes <pablomendes at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
> I am wondering if CKAN could become the standard way to distribute bulk open
> data, beyond its current role as leading metadata catalog for open data
> sets.
>
> I am thinking of a scenario where I'd host my downloads on my server, but
> would add the metadata to CKAN to point to my files. A ckan-to-apt wrapper
> would then allow me to do something like:
>
> sudo add-apt-repository ckan.net/...
> sudo apt-get update
> sudo apt-get install dbpedia
>
> Using dependency relationships would allow packages to pull each other, and
> also allow software to indicate dependency on data (which is a real world
> use case for DBpedia Spotlight, for example).
>
> This could also increase adoption of CKAN as metadata catalog, as the added
> value for creating an entry for your package increases.
>
> Do you guys have already a better solution sketched for this scenario? Is
> there some major gap that prevents this idea from becoming reality?
>
> Cheers
> Pablo
>
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>

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