Re: tarball URL conventions and sptools

I wrote:
> $ cat /package/admin/sptools/package/url-src
> http://multivac.cwru.edu./sptools/releases/sptools-%{VERSION}.tar.bz2
> $ cat /package/admin/sptools/package/url-src-latest
> http://multivac.cwru.edu./sptools/latest-version.txt

I've now implemented this in sptools, except that the files are
spelled with underscores instead of dashes.  Package authors: if you
put package/url_src and package/url_src_latest files in future
versions of your packages, then upgrades after that point will be
fully automatable.

> Programs could use url-src-latest to discover the latest version (and
> then perhaps download it via url-src).  This assumes a well-ordering
> of versions, though - we could instead somehow accommodate separate
> branches ("stable", "beta", etc.).

Actually, this can be handled too - you can have a different "latest"
file for each branch on your web site, and then each package version's
package/url_src_latest file would refer to the "latest" file for the
version's own branch.  There is the limitation that a single version
can't jump from one branch to another.  So when a beta version is
found to be stable, it would have to be re-released as a new version
using the URL for the stable branch's "latest" file.


paul