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Re: [bug-gsrc] GSRC maintainer


From: Brandon Invergo
Subject: Re: [bug-gsrc] GSRC maintainer
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:13:32 +0200

Hi Karl,

> Thanks much for writing.  I'll send you some GNU maintainer information
> separately and we'll go from there.

I've read the information you have sent on being a maintainer and it all
sounds quite reasonable to me. 

> Exactly how gsrc evolves would be up to you, as its maintainer.  Brian
> Gough and I had the original idea (well, slightly different ones), but
> it clearly hasn't taken over the world :), so don't feel compelled to
> keep it in its current state if you have ideas for another direction.
> 
> It's true that it was not intended to be a package management system in
> any way.  That's what GNU Stow is for.

Yes, actually the system that I had been imagining in my head would be
combining something like GSRC for the source fetching/compilation and
Stow for the actual installation. Anyway, at the moment I have only one
major change which I would consider for GSRC, which would be to have the
directories containing downloaded sourcecode be automatically versioned
using Bazaar. I'll outline it here for subscribers to the list to
contemplate or to ready their torches and pitchforks.

Currently, each version of a project's source code is stored in a
separate directory (ie gsrc/gnu/hello/work/hello-2.7). Since there are
very few cases where a new version involves a complete rewrite of the
code, it would be more space efficient to make the work directory a bzr
repository, and then when a new version comes out, to download, merge
(favoring newer changes in conflicts), commit and tag automatically. If
you want to roll back to a previous version, it's as simple as reverting
to an older tag. It would also make personal modifications (I think)
easier to handle from version to version via branching and merging
rather than creating and applying patches to carry from one version to
the next.

Regardless, that wouldn't be implemented for some time...there's a lot
of work to do just to get everything up to date.

>     ps - I still think that GSRC would make a great foundation for a
>     (separately maintained) source-based free GNU/Linux distribution! 
> 
> You're not the only one :).  (Whether gsrc-related or not.)  Please
> check out the recent discussions on the gnu-system-discuss list, and
> feel free to subscribe there.
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-system-discuss

Thanks for the link. I had my eye on that Packaging project page for a
while but I never subscribed to the list. I've done so now and I'm just
waiting for my confirmation email. I'll outline some of my ideas there
in case they're helpful!

Cheers,
Brandon




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