Re: Fetching sources using Guix (re: Building a software toolchain that works)

[Maxime Devos]

Ryan Prior schreef op za 19-03-2022 om 00:08 [+0000]:
> Would it be feasible or desirable to create a set of "reason"
> symbols, similar to our "licenses," and attach a reason (or unknown?)
> to each snippet and patch? Then we can expose meaningful data to the
> end-user about patches & snippets that are available, enabling an
> informed choice about whether to apply them when fetching sources.
> 
> This could also be useful in our own record-keeping, so that we can
> track the usage of patches and snippets for different reasons. It
> would be nice, for example, to see a downward trend in the number of
> patches for build systems that won't work at all without them, either
> because we improve the logic in our build steps or because we
> contribute changes upstream to make software easier to build.

FWIW, when reviewing, I try to make sure that the reason is documented
in a comment:

  (origin
    (snippet
      #~(begin
          ;; Remove bundled libraries
          (delete-file-recursively "vendor")
          ;; Remove non-free extension
          (delete-file-recursively "foobar"))))

Additionally, patch files should contain a description what they are
for and a link to the upstream record.

So in theory, what you are describing is already being done, except it
is done as comments and not some machine-readable tagging system.

Greetings,
Maxime.

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