There is a fair bit of meta information which is interesting about
software distributions.  Here is a summary.  

	EXPLAINING THE CONTENTS

summary - a less than one line description (CPAN / DPKG / RPM etc)

description - a description sufficient for a person to understand what
	    the module is for (DPKG / RPM etc.)
	  

URL - a url for the "homepage" of the module (RPM / ?? )

grouping - a category for the module.  N.B. only one best fit in
	 normal modules (DPKG / RPM)

	ABOUT DEVELOPMENT 

version - current version number (CPAN / DPKG / RPM / etc. )

status - alpha / beta / stable / supported / depreciated
       (CPAN )


	ABOUT AUTHORSHIP

author - who wrote it (majority of code / owner of the package name)
       (CPAN / RPM )

packager - who build the current package
	 (DPKG / RPM)

license - under what terms can it be used
	(CPAN / RPM ) 

source-URL - where the software contained in the package was taken from 
	   (RPM : sort of )

	ABOUT DEPENDENCIES

requires - what is needed for this sofware to work
	 ( DPKG / RPM ) 

conflicts - what is incompatible with this software
	  ( DPKG / RPM )

recommendations - what packages should probably be installed if you
	    install this one

suggestions - what packages might be interesting to install if you
	    install this one 
	    ( DPKG )

	ABOUT CONTENT FILES

documentation - files not needed for software function, but which
	      explain how it works and probably should be available to
	      users.
	      ( RPM ) 

sub packages - grouping of files into different independent packages
	     which don't all need to be installed together
	     (e.g. libraries and programs which use them)
	     ( RPM ) 

	MISCELLANEOUS

priority - how important is it to install this package / does the
	 previous version have security bugs etc..  
		  (DPKG) 



A comparison of DPKG and RPM was done by the author of Alien.  This
can be found by looking for the keywords DPKG/RPM/Comparison on the
nearest working search engine such as http://www.google.com.  The
above list is at least partly based on that.  The mistakes, however,
are probably mine.

E.g. http://debian-br.sourceforge.net/txt/alien.html

