Re: 1.5.0 release?

[Greg Hogan]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2024 at 5:32 AM Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> Greg Hogan <code@greghogan.com> skribis:
>
> > With the recent core-updates merge, and as the master branch
> > stabilizes, is there a plan or desire for a 1.5.0 release?
>
> Desire, definitely; plan? we have to come up with one.
>
> I think there should be a team of ~4 volunteers who can commit to focus
> on it for, say, 2–5 months¹ (the shorter the better, but we have to
> prepare for extra time).

That seems like a lengthy time to roll some release artifacts. Is the
remaining effort to fix failing builds?

With Guix embracing the chaos of rolling releases, and a presumption
that users will `guix pull` soon after installation, I count only
three motivations to tag a new release: 1) replacing an old release
with an outdated Guix unable to self update, 2) security fixes for
installation packages so as not to be immediately pwned, and 3)
minimizing the number of replacement installation packages (especially
after core packages updates).

Whether the remainder of the packages are available or even buildable
at release seems inconsequential, since without release branches or
backported security fixes all Guix systems should be kept up-to-date.
We do need "quality control", but on a continuing basis rather than at
particular points in time.

I believe other distributions the size of Guix have some version of
package "ownership" (responsibility), which both reduces duplicated
effort and when lacking informs deprecation and removal of the
package. Guix teams is coarse, both in subsetting packages and
contributors.

Greg