The basic idea revolves around creating a central DB that would collect package description. (ok, that's not new).

To use this data, a model (à la Config::Model) will be proposed that: - use the common descriptions through a DB backend - represents the package description within the distro's packaging system (Such model is already available in Debian's libconfig-model-perl package. A model for RedHat's spec file would be required to implement a proof of concept) - the common data would be used as default value for the distro's package description with Config::Model's "compute" mechanism.

This system could also be used for data that are common between distros like license, summary, upstream home page.

One thing is still to be defined: how to update the "common" descriptions and translation. This could be done through Config::Model or by another means (wiki, trusted team ...). Discussing this point at FOSDEM could be useful.

Unfortunately, the author probably will not have time to implement a prototype until FOSDEM, but the idea can be discussed to see if other distro could be interested.

To start the discussion, a short presentation of Config::Model capabilities will be done (mostly around the compute feature to get data from the common pool to distro teams).

Important: - This presentation does not require Perl knowledge