URLs as Swift Package Identifiers

[mattt]

@Frizlab

AFAICT there is the notion of package ID , and the notion of package source .
These must be, IMHO, totally independent, otherwise private forks and/or local package overrides would not be possible, or would be complex to setup.

I don't think that's necessary. Swift Package Manager doesn't currently make such a distinction, and yet forks and overrides still work.

What you're proposing here is essentially to make the name parameter (added by SE-0226) in dependency declarations mandatory. I think @tonyarnold has the best take on this:

@tonyarnold

I understand why this change was made, but gosh it made writing more complicated Package descriptions a bit of a nightmare.

For id to work, you need a centralized registry to coordinate who gets what identifiers, which we don't have. URIs provide the same uniqueness guarantees without requiring a central naming authority or any changes to package manifests.