Re: GUB

[David Kastrup]

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> writes:

> Carl Sorensen writes:
>
>>     Wouldn't that mean abandoning Windows?
>>
>> I haven't looked carefully at GUB for a few years, and even when I
>> did, I scarcely advanced beyond the "cargo-cult" stage with it.  I'm
>> copying Jan on this email, because he can likely give better answers
>> than I can.
>>
>> As I understand it, GUB does two things.
>>
>> 1) It makes sure all of the needed packages are present in the
>> appropriate form to complete the build
>> 2) I has appropriate build scripts to accomplish the cross-platform
>> build under Linux.
>
> In essence, GUB is a mini source-based distribution that allows cross
> compiling.  With some extra patches and recipes for packages that
> LilyPond (and Denemo?) need.
>
> Guix is very similar.  It uses Guile instead of Python and is a whole
> GNU/Linux system.  GUB does have some things that Guix does not have,
> but if we add them to Guix, everyone can enjoy and we don't have to
> maintain all this ourselves.

Who is "we", "everyone", and "we", respectively, in that last sentence?
LilyPond has a lot of dependencies.  At the current point of time, GUB
is mainly run by Windows-based volunteers without much of a clue about
GNU/Linux operation regularly for producing ready-to-run native
installers for a number of target platforms with different architectures
on free and proprietary systems.

That's an impressively high bar.  But those users clearly are contained
in the "we" who don't have to maintain all this by themselves while they
are clearly not contained in the "we" adding anything to Guix.

There are differences between users, powerusers, programmers, and
powerprogrammers, in availability and ability.  Painting them all with
the same brush is a recipe for resentment from all sides at the lack of
achievable progress.

-- 
David Kastrup