Re: Packaging Inferno

[Nils Gillmann]

Diego Nicola Barbato transcribed 12K bytes:
> Hello,
> 
> Thank you for your feedback.
> 
> Nils Gillmann <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Ludovic Courtès transcribed 1.9K bytes:
> >> Hello Diego,
> >> 
> >> Diego Nicola Barbato <address@hidden> skribis:
> >> 
> >> > I have written a package definition for Inferno and I would like to know
> >> > if it would make sense to add it to Guix.  I am asking because I am not
> >> > sure if it is compatible with the FSDG (bundled fonts, trademarks, ...)
> >> > and if it would be of any use to anyone.
> >> 
> >> Removing the proprietary(?) fonts like you did sounds like the right
> 
> @Ludo:  The fonts I removed are copyright Bigelow & Holmes.  They are
> licensed in a way that forbids them from being modified and distributed
> except as part of Inferno (or software derived from Inferno) [1].
> 
> >> thing to do.  As for trademarks, please see
> >> <https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#trademarks>
> >> to determine whether there’s a problem at all.
> 
> @Ludo:  Judging from the link there seems to be no problem with the
> trademarks after all.  The bundled fonts (the ones I did not remove),
> however, are provided in a format native to Inferno (and Plan 9) and can
> not be rebuilt from source, which might be a problem according to this
> [2] thread.
> 
> >> Could you also check whether all the code is GPLv2+ like the ‘license’
> >> field suggests?
> 
> @Ludo:  According to the NOTICE files scattered through the source tree
> and the Inferno home page [3] different parts of Inferno are licensed
> under GPLv2+, LGPLv2+, Expat (MIT-template), Lucent Public License 1.02
> and Freetype.
> Am I right to assume that I have to mention all of them in the ‘license’
> field even though the NOTICE in the root of the source tree [4] says
> that the "collection" is governed by the GPLv2+?  
> I could not find the Lucent Public License [5] in the (guix licenses)
> module.  Should I add it or should I use ‘non-copyleft’?
> 
> >> Do I get it right that the build result is a script that launches
> >> Inferno as a GNU/Linux process?  It seems like it could be useful.
> 
> @Ludo: That is right.  I got the script from here [6].  It starts the
> window manager and logs in as the current user; it is supposed to
> provide a convenient entry point to start exploring the system.
> Alongside this script in %out/bin/ there is also a symlink to the emu
> binary which is installed by ‘mk install’ under
> %out/usr/inferno/Linux/386/bin/ (Linux/arm/bin on arm machines).  This
> directory contains several other executables.  I am considering making
> some of them (like the Limbo compiler) available under %out/bin in the
> same way as emu. 
> 
> >> Some comments about the package definition:
> >> 
> >> >     (build-system trivial-build-system)
> >> >     (native-inputs `(("bash" ,bash)
> >> >                      ("coreutils" ,coreutils)
> >> >                      ("grep" ,grep)
> >> >                      ("sed" ,sed)
> >> >                      ("awk" ,gawk)
> >> >                      ("xz" ,xz)
> >> >                      ("tar" ,tar)
> >> >                      ("gcc-toolchain" ,gcc-toolchain)                    
> >> >  ))
> >> >     (inputs `(("libx11" ,libx11)
> >> >               ("xorgproto" ,xorgproto)
> >> >               ("libxext" ,libxext)))
> >> 
> >> Like Efraim wrote, I think using ‘gnu-build-system’ would allow you to
> >> simplify the package definition.
> 
> @Ludo:  My first attempt at writing the package definition used
> ‘gnu-build-system’. I switched to ‘trivial-build-system’ when I realised
> that most phases in %standard-phases were ill suited for building
> inferno.  I will try to rewrite the definition using ‘gnu-build-system’.
> 
> >> >              ;; build mk
> >> >              (invoke "./makemk.sh")
> >> 
> >> It would be ideal if we had a separate package for ‘mk’ (I suppose it
> >> can run on POSIX systems, right?).
> 
> @Ludo:  This is Plan 9's mk (their version of make), which, I believe,
> can run on POSIX systems.  Though, if we were to add mk to Guix, i would
> rather package the one provided by Plan 9 from Userspace [7] since that
> project seems to be more active than Inferno.
> 
> > I can finish my mk package and send it in.
> > My mk is the canonical set of mk files as used by bmake.
> > Sources are from http://crufty.net/help/sjg/mk-files.htm
> > and/or places linked from there.
> >
> > If this matches the mk mentioned here, I can create this patch.
> 
> @Nils:  Your mk package seems to be unrelated to Plan 9's mk.

Aha! I have it in 9base, which I have also packaged. At least according
to the README in the 9base/mk/ folder it should be compatible.

Now I don't know if we want all of 9base... I would leave analyis of
that to you. If 9base on its own does not work, I can extract mk or
create a package which just builds mk and gets rid of the other files.

https://git.suckless.org/9base

I haven't checked but would assume that differences exist between
9base (altough it states plan9 + inferno os) and inferno os mk.

> >> Once you’ve double-checked the licensing and trademark situation, I
> >> think you can go ahead and submit it as a patch (or two patches, with
> >> ‘mk’ separately).
> >> 
> >> Thanks!
> >> 
> >> Ludo’.
> >> 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Diego
> 
> 
> [1]: 


> 
> [2]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2018-10/msg00010.html
> [3]: http://inferno-os.org/inferno/licence.html
> [4]: 


> 
> [5]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#lucent102
> [6]: https://www.ueber.net/who/mjl/inferno/getting-started.html
> [7]: https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/