Recommendation for the procedure to add platform packages

All, The Haskell Platform steering committee have been very busy over the past two weeks drafting, discussing and redrafting. The result is our recommendation to the libraries list for a procedure for adding new packages to the Haskell Platform. Before you all go off and read it, we'd like to say what feedback we are looking for and what the next steps will be. The document we've come up with describes the procedure but only some very basic quality requirements for packages. Our aim is to have the libraries list come to an agreement on the procedure first and then we can discuss codifying a more comprehensive set of package requirements and guidelines. The main document contains: * the procedure itself, which is relatively short * a rationale, cross-linked to the procedure * a procedure to help us make decisions http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/AddingPackages There is an accompanying "how to" guide to help the people who will actually be making proposals: http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/AddingPackages/HowTo There is also an example proposal: http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/Proposals/example So please send in your comments and of course feel free to ask questions and seek clarifications. Our hope is that we'll be able to agree this procedure stuff relatively quickly and then move onto package quality issues and indeed to actually start proposing packages. Let me also say that I've been very pleased with how the steering committee has worked. People have put in a lot of effort. It took 2 weeks, nearly 60 emails and over 100 edits to the draft. We didn't always agree but we talked things through thoroughly and turned our early draft into something much better that we're all satisfied with. Duncan, on behalf of the rest of the steering committee: Iavor Diatchki, Isaac Dupree, Thomas Schilling, Johan Tibell and Adam Wick.