Re: Packaging a free Firefox

[Pjotr Prins]

On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 06:10:28PM +0200, Tonton wrote:
> I guess channels already sort of exist. have a git repo or similar with
> whatever guix packages in it and point $GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH at it. Then all
> packages defined in your git repo are suddenly part of your available guix
> packages.

The GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH works on an individual basis. When it comes to
sharing it is totally inconvenient. I know because we are using it in
production.

The main problems are (1) people need to check out a source tree to
use it - with troublesome instructions and slow install routes
(typically a few hours) and (2) the git versions of the GNU Guix repo
has to be in sync with the GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH repo.

With my collaborators we often face problems - even yesterday we had a
package conflict.

One reason we channels are slow in coming is because they need to
resolve multiple problems. But in a nutshell they are about sharing
software that is not in Guix mainline, divert responsibility to
channel maintainers, while providing fast trusted binary installs. 

One thing that needs to be resolved is how much we share with the Guix
trunk (i.e., the running Guix with pull). My current thought is that
we should share *nothing*. This is the only way to have reproducible
installs from channels. Of course the risk is that the daemon goes out
of sync. But I think we can handle that if the guix client makes sure
incompatibilities are notified. The channel should be updated to
support updated daemons.

You can see that thinking this through is non-trivial and Guix
maintainers probably realize there are more problems ;)

At this point everyone is hacking it their own way. Witness people
writing their own packages for firefox. Would be nice to have a
consistent path where we can be more efficient.

Pj.