[okfn-help] Multiple download URLs for CKAN

Tue Nov 17 10:39:19 GMT 2009

We're specifying a multiple download URLs feature for CKAN packages
and have some questions. See ticket:

http://knowledgeforge.net/ckan/trac/ticket/189

Question 1:

We're discussing multiple download urls for a package. Here's the
ticket: http://knowledgeforge.net/ckan/trac/ticket/189

Distributions vs resources

Distribution is: the whole of a package's payload (in one file or url/api)
Resource: is any single file associated with a package

e.g. with wikipedia may have a full dump in SQL, HTML or JSON format.
Each is a 'Distribution' - the complete thing but in a different
format. But they may also have separate files containing a part of the
whole, e.g. A-M.zip and N-Z.zip which we term 'Resources'.

At the moment we're focusing on supporting Distributions. Our concern
is that this will be quickly abused for Resources. Is this likely?
And, if so, should wee just bite the bullet and get rid of the
distinction right now?

Question 2:

We think a Distribution (or a Resource) should have a URL, a format
and a description. Does this sound right? Also, should we rename
'description' to 'title' to imply this should be only a short summary.

David