The Debian debtags package and database are a flexible scheme to assign tags (properties) to packages of a distribution. It would be of benefit to SUSE to port debtags.

What are these tags good for?

The most obvious use is a possibility to search for specific capabilities or attributes in order to find packages which may fulfill particular needs.

• Go here

• Or take a look at which tags packages have

Where is the database?

Debian has a rich debtags database, but its packages are named differently from those in SUSE. A program called distromatch by the same author may be used to map SUSE packages to Debian.

How to access the tags?

Debian sports a Xapian-based search engine. It would be possible to use the same API to access the existing Debian database (in concert with the distromatch map).

Obviously it would be very interesting to add an interface to zypper.

Questions

Create the susetags database or peruse the debian database?

If created, how is the susetags database maintained?

Resources

• A cute introduction to Debtags

• The debtags wiki page

• The debtags resources

• Appstream effort

• Old fate related to debtags