I see the following related but arguably different issues:
- Moodle offers at present different versions (1.8.2, 1.8.4, 1.9.0, etc.) and "latest" code for each version, and that at present the available downloads for any version may be different than the download for the SAME version available the week before
- Versioning is at best confusing (even for CVS users) and unfathomable for non-CVS users as our little investigation in part suggests
- Whether to differentiate between what I am calling a "package" and "build", package being a static collection of files and build being a dynamic set of files, with a build being what is currently offered by Moodle and a package as something that is not offered by Moodle
- Whether in either of the two cases above a manifest of the files included (in the case of the build, by have the system generated a manifest.php prior to zipping the file weekly, and in the former by creating the manifest when "packaging" the file.
I started another thread regarding the "latest download" question here as well: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=95888
NB: Moodle could in fact provide a utility to actually do a runtime creation of any package based on appropriate CVS and manifest data, but each such package would have to have a unique identifier, perhaps based on the actual date built but managed so that the current version ID was not confused with the package ID. Let's see if I can make this simpler.... let's say that moodle zips a package March 4, 2007 for 1.8.2; arguably, based on the version and package date a set of files could be packaged based on the manifest and cvs info and made available in real time..... if the requested package was not on file, so as to cut down on unnecessary packaging....