bug#66279: Unexporting <user-account>

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Ludovic,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Maxim,
>
> Commit 03795e2ba27424fc98957da00f6c71325e7ae425 exports the
> <user-account> record type descriptor (RTD).
>
> Common practice is to keep RTDs private because by publishing them, we
> make it harder to change the ABI (because users might be matching fields
> positionally) and we make it trivial for users to forge records of that
> type, bypassing any checks we may have in the official constructor (such
> as “sanitizers”).

Perhaps we should document this?  More power to the users!

> What do you think of reverting this commit?  I don’t see references to
> <user-account> outside of its module.

I'd like to note there are also valid usages requiring a record type,
such as 'match-record' from (guix records).  Otherwise, I don't feel
strongly about it, but if if's done I think the rationale you gave above
should be documented in our contributing guidelines.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim