Request: build package with source tarball

[Ryan Prior]

Hi there! Lately I've been testing distribution tarballs with a workflow like this:

1. update some software in my source directory
2. create a distribution tarball
3. untar to a directory like /tmp/mypkg-src
4. run: guix build --with-source=mypkg=/tmp/mypkg-src​

It would be nice to skip step 3 there and just run: guix build --with-source=mypkg.tar.gz​

Guix should then untar and use the result as the source directory for the build.

To soup the process up even further, allow --with-source​ to take a URL of a tarball, in which case Guix fetches and untars. Then I could write a trivial local microservice which produces distribution tarballs on demand, allowing me to skip both steps 2 and 3. That would be a sweet workflow.

Ryan