Re: New importer for GNU packages

[Karl Berry]

    Is it sufficiently machine readable so that one could extract the
    information automatically?

There have been various efforts over many years to make the Directory
machine-readable, in its many implementations.  I do not know where they
stand today.

    Out of the ~303 packages in ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu, 

For the record, fp:/gd/gnuorg/maintainers.bypkg (and /maintainers)
ultimately defines what is and isn't a GNU "package".  There are
currently 382 GNU packages listed in that file (and nine special cases
and four lines of comments).

More accessibly, the gnupackages.txt in womb/gnumaint on savannah has
the same list, minus the special cases.

Of course, the contents of a "package" can vary tremendously, and not
all are installable software.  That's just how it has historically
turned out.

Best,
Karl