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

From: Steve George <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 15:23:13 +0100

On Thu, Jun 12, 2025 at 11:30:07PM +0200, Simon Tournier wrote:
> On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 at 22:25, Leo Famulari <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > Also, our old releases work until they don't. We want SWH to save us
> > from bitrot, but our packages keep fighting us with little time bombs
> > that break the build after certain dates. We need releases to keep Guix
> > buildable for new installations. Guix is a build-from-source distro,
> > although we hide that well.
> 
> Oh that significantly rises the bar! :-)
> 
> This could be some “Tier X“ meaning cross your fingers! ;-)
> 
> Well, if we define a scale of Tiers:
> 
>  1. Tier 1: this restricted package set runs on Linux x86_64;
>  2. Tier 2: Tier 1 + these other package set;
>  3. Tier 3: this restricted package set runs on Linux arm;
>  4. Tier 4: etc.
>  5. Tier 5: Hurd, best effort
>  6. Tier 6: etc.
>     …
>     Tier X: full rebuild from binary seeds and fetching source code from
>             Software Heritage; cross your fingers!
> 
> And having a Tier with a different physical date, etc.
> 
> I mean, this kind of thing could be part of some horizon for the next
> next next … next release.  It sends the signal “we care about long term
> and we do thing that might last”.  
(...)

This is definitely something that could be done over time, if we had people interested in it. At the moment Nix seems to operate 6 tiers, and they have similar ideas about different forms of guarantees.

Steve / Futurile