Packages grow, no longer fit on a 💾

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

Over the course of a few years, the size of our packages has apparently
kept growing.  Example:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ guix time-machine --commit=v1.2.0 -- size emacs 
store item                                                       total    self
/gnu/store/118xpdazyylxa1rlc68h9lmh38vhxrb4-llvm-10.0.0            210.8   
139.3  16.2%
/gnu/store/1qmd9achfkm1njzxf8hi86q53pmy9sxk-mesa-20.0.7            369.2   
131.3  15.3%
/gnu/store/d83hc7cqgnhl1vlz1rv4ibkvaqaq2g35-emacs-27.1             859.7   
106.2  12.4%
/gnu/store/18hp7flyb3yid3yp49i6qcdq0sbi5l1n-guile-3.0.2            132.8    
53.2   6.2%
/gnu/store/9lckq1194qcy4a7kv8bihagd58shj7yr-gtk+-3.24.20           723.7    
49.0   5.7%
/gnu/store/qizplwwgqwyq6qmz1i6jlaib5kgzrgwq-icu4c-66.1             110.2    
38.1   4.4%
/gnu/store/fa6wj5bxkj5ll1d7292a70knmyl7a0cr-glibc-2.31              38.4    
36.7   4.3%
[…]
total: 859.7 MiB
$ guix time-machine --commit=v1.3.0 -- size emacs 
store item                                                       total    self
/gnu/store/g3idjpqsp2p2d163qfzskxj4k58nrx7f-llvm-11.0.0            220.0   
148.6  16.9%
/gnu/store/jf269s6clr6r57p8v5c3c1qkyra6apq2-mesa-20.2.4            389.1   
141.6  16.1%
/gnu/store/7nlq2v4000pw8vgj3m4vrwz072ib58xh-emacs-27.2             880.5   
106.4  12.1%
/gnu/store/18hp7flyb3yid3yp49i6qcdq0sbi5l1n-guile-3.0.2            132.8    
53.2   6.0%
/gnu/store/czf23hay13pp25yzrb4yq3n4gcri5r70-gtk+-3.24.24           744.3    
49.1   5.6%
/gnu/store/2wqjj3mkqdvsvksndr2hpjpi7qqwi7kr-icu4c-66.1             110.2    
38.1   4.3%
/gnu/store/fa6wj5bxkj5ll1d7292a70knmyl7a0cr-glibc-2.31              38.4    
36.7   4.2%
[…]
total: 880.5 MiB
$ guix time-machine --commit=v1.4.0 -- size emacs 
store item                                                       total    self
/gnu/store/i11jmrc90drpx9mc6cyb6s4pjny91qx6-emacs-28.2            1592.7   
250.6  15.7%
/gnu/store/sdzfljm6san79pqiy42yp0nzmkr2bafc-mesa-21.3.8            411.6   
169.6  10.6%
/gnu/store/6pdzpmxg5afzss6dlivq8z84sfa31x22-llvm-11.0.0            221.5   
149.5   9.4%
/gnu/store/lphzb1z0r4kbb453rsvnw7msrxxzp5r7-libgccjit-10.3.0       244.8   
128.5   8.1%
/gnu/store/pfas3c4lhr1jwkj2gl0yx8dg4xjjlp4r-mozjs-91.13.0          261.2    
65.4   4.1%
/gnu/store/hy6abswwv4d89zp464fw52z65fkzr7h5-perl-5.34.0            147.7    
58.6   3.7%
/gnu/store/zyqimpkmpffc24nwwqp46cicj8ss85y5-binutils-2.37          126.0    
54.4   3.4%
/gnu/store/cnfsv9ywaacyafkqdqsv2ry8f01yr7a9-guile-3.0.7            129.1    
52.0   3.3%
/gnu/store/4aq7hw017s9ihpm1rxpwfz28c80569z9-gtk+-3.24.30          1002.2    
48.6   3.1%
/gnu/store/vaxkf8cbc7slgc3ikm5qr3815wih93w8-ghostscript-with-cups-9.54.0   
219.1    39.1   2.5%
/gnu/store/bjycxjjkp1da53ijsa4hfdrz9mcgg55h-icu4c-69.1             110.7    
38.0   2.4%
/gnu/store/ayc9r7162rphy4zjw8ch01pmyh214h82-glibc-2.33              76.6    
36.6   2.3%
[…]
total: 1592.7 MiB
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I think something went wrong here.  :-)

In particular with Emacs itself (due to JIT + dependency on libgccjit,
Binutils, etc.?) and with GTK+ (due to mozjs in polkit?).

And then MESA and LLVM have always been problematically big.

We should do better.  I mean, it’s just a text editor, isn’t it?

Ludo’.