On 12/22/06, Earnie Boyd <earnie@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
Quoting Gabor Hojtsy <gabor@hojtsy.hu>:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Earnie Boyd wrote:
<quote>If your module comes with other modules or is meant to be used exclusively with other modules, enter the name of the package here.</quote> Hmm... It uses Taxonomy ... Hmm... That must be the package string value I should use for my package.
Earnie, "package" and "module" are not the same things.
That really depends on which definition you use for package and which one you use for module. I think this definition for product from IBM as found using define:product on Google fits well: "An installable unit of a software product. Software product packages are separately installable units that can operate independently from other packages of that software product." For module I find "A program unit that is discrete and identifiable with respect to compiling, combining with other units, and loading." Since package and module both resolve to a unit of software I think of them as synonymous.
Earnie Names are people make them mean. If the general public uses hacker for what the tech community term cracker, and that catches on, then so be it, despite the protests of the minority (the tech community). In the Drupal universe, module has a very specific meaning. It means a file called something.module, living in the modules directory or the sites/something/ modules directory, and optionally a .install file (and as of 5.0, has its own directory, and a .info file). It is too late to rename module, since that is what it meant and that is what it will continue to mean. Module has other meanings in other parts of the industry, but that is irrelevant to us in the Drupal world.
Package is a module suite, in which the modules are usually
architected to work closely together (like the links package, ecommerce, the erp module suite, etc). Core modules are not forming module suites with contrib modules. Contrib modules themselfs can form module suites. You won't have taxonomy module listed with other taxonomy related modules in your module list for sure. There is no taxonomy module suite (package).
The definition for package Drupal needs to promote is one as found in the same Google search I mentioned above: "A package is a collection of modules related by authorship, maintenance, or distribution."
Personally, I never liked the name "install profile" because it somewhat clashes with the "profile module" that has specific fields for the users. It will confuse users. I prefer to term them "packages", but I think Adrian is working on a broader definition of package a la Debian way. (Hey Adrian, jump in and correct me if I am wrong here). If the name "package" is not reserved for some future thingie, then I am all for renaming install profiles, although it may be too late to do so.