[GRASS5] GRASS extension manager proposal

[Hamish]

> > why bother with g.install and just put it all in GRASS CVS?
> 
> Because, as Benjamin and others (especially Paolo Cavallini) have
> suggested, a development model with add-in modules is vastly more
> robust that one in which everything is in the same tarball. Central
> servicies need to be in the core distribution, but everything else
> should be modularised. They can be stored on a central CVS repository,
> but do not need to be in the same project, just to follow the same
> installation rules. 


What I would like to avoid is a situation like r.cva -- a very useful
module which never becomes an official part of GRASS and is pretty much
lost to us once the author moves on to other projects.

I can see an advantage in the R-style modularity for places which want
to add their own proprietary modules for in house use. But that doesn't
help the rest of us any ;)  .. this could easily be done for GRASS
scripts, and GRASS has enough low level modules that those can be very
useful. As far as multiplatform binary distribution though, Debian
provides the only working model I know of.. rather complex solution..





best,
Hamish