Subject: Re: [bug#78332] GCD005: Regular and efficient releases

From: Steve George <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2025 11:16:00 +0100

Hi Felix,

On 11 May, Felix Lechner via Guix-patches via wrote:
> Hi Ian and Rutherther,
> 
> On Sun, May 11 2025, Rutherther wrote:
> 
> > If release and master are diverging branches
> 
> Sorry to double up.
> 
> From a technical point of view, I think it would be superior to have
> package functions that accept a version (i.e. not variables like now)
> and define releases and the current development "branch" by the package
> versions they pull in.
> 
> There would be no conflict between release work and regular development
> activity.
> 
> Services would also have to be versioned.
(...) 

There's lots of interesting approaches we could take, advice from more experienced Guix people than me (sponsors) was to try and keep the GCD to a single change. I've seen it myself that we've had lots of great conversations, but for a small volunteer team it's difficult to make large systemic changes. So this is definitely a "pragmatic" GCD which doesn't require big code changes, and even as (Reza pointed out) distinctly avoids creating a dependency on any new functionality being implemented. 

Thanks,

Steve / Futurile