Re: [Feature idea] Adding wikidata, wikipedia & screenshot-url fields to package-recipes

[swedebugia <swedebugia@riseup.net>]

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Hi :)

On 2018-11-01 11:21, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 01, 2018 at 10:44:19AM +0100, swedebugia wrote:
>>     Also to help us to associate new and existing packages with
>>     wikidata-entries we could devise a guile-programmed way to associate
>>     wikidata-entries to existing package objects and perhaps use this to
>>     populate new package-recipes created with guix import
>>
>>     Guix would then be the first package manager to both be completely free
>>     of proprietary software and to leverage knowledge from Wikidata and WP.
>>
>>     What do you think?
> Absolutely the way forward. Totally excited you want to run with this!
>
> Wikidata is linked data and dry and by using it we can share between
> distros and software building projects (conda, easybuild etc.). It
> scales because the software maintainers themselves will be encouraged
> to update project information - such as a reference to a mailing list
> - which is the only way to really keep up-to-date in a scalable way.
> Wikipedia will use that information too. Wikidata is DRY.

First I did not understand DRY. Found 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself

Agreed, it would be nice if changes to Wikidata would be driven by the 
authors of the programs and shared with leaf nodes (package managers, etc.)

> People don't realise it, but in science to find the right tools for
> the job is often a challenge. Wikidata will help us create sections
> for tools that address certain tasks. For example variant calling in
> sequencing data. I and others here have a direct stake in solving this
> problem. This meta-information does not belong in Guix, so we need a
> place to handle it.
I agree. Though it would be good to find a way to keep queries to 
wikidata to a minimum. Caching maybe.
> When you have a proof-of-concept we can even
> consider writing a paper about it.
Eh, unfortunately my guile and guix fu is not really anything to brag 
about, yet ;-). I am reading up on guile and trying to understand the 
code in guix.

Right now my skill level is at

  * finding spelling errors and unclear text in the manual
  * contribute new simple packages (about to package recoll
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoll and splint)
  * adding better error messages to guix
  * sharing new ideas


This wikidata endeavor would likely take some time for me to accomplish 
with a good mentor.

First up is deciding whether the core procedures interacting with 
wikidata should be in guix or as a separate module. I suggest separate 
module.

Then writing client procedures to interface with the SPARQL API in 
wikidata. This has already been done in python 3 (beta) see 
https://github.com/dahlia/wikidata gplv3+

We could piggyback on this client (essentially making guix dependent on 
python :/) or better yet contribute to one of the existing guile sql 
libraries:

  * https://sourceforge.net/projects/guile-simplesql/files/latest/download
    (unmaintained since 2014 it seems)
  * https://github.com/opencog/guile-dbi (active fork)

The last one looks most promising but I did not look at the code yet.

> Will you join our Guix event at FOSDEM? This would be an interesting
> working group.
Thanks for the invitation. I will think about it.

I look forward to hone my guile and guix skills :)

Cheers
Swedebugia


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