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Re: Introducing GNU Guix
From: |
John Sullivan |
Subject: |
Re: Introducing GNU Guix |
Date: |
Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:31:04 -0500 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.1.50 (gnu/linux) |
Brandon Invergo <address@hidden> writes:
> Obviously, I'm interested in maintaining a clear picture of the use of
> GSRC when something more powerful like Guix is available. It's best, I
> think, to consider it important for users of other distros who want to
> install GNU software when: a) they don't have permission to install
> system-wide, b) their distro does not provide the latest/desired
> version, c) their distro does not provide the "plain/vanilla" version,
> d) their package manager does not allow to easily rebuild a package from
> source.
I was part of generating the idea to do GSRC, so I can say why I still
think it's important given what I had in mind then.
I thought that having a periodic coordinated release of as much of the
GNU code as possible would have many beneficial effects that don't have
to do with a user actually installing every program included in the
release:
* Periodic coordinated releases are incentives; they give maintainers
and contributors reasons to take action at particular times and
therefore might help get things done.
* Since the build process is uniform, it also serves as a kind of
quality control step. At the very least, some build errors will be
caught; but as the project develops, maybe code that is too buggy in
certain ways will be left out of the release.
* Helps provide an incentive (by way of clear sensible benefits) for
maintainers to use the common infrastructure. "If you host your code
on ftp.gnu.org, then your package can be included in the GNU Source
Release."
* Helps provide a clearer image of what GNU is. They provide publicity
opportunities and give potential users something they can wrap their
mind around -- GNU is this code. Better and more grokkable image means
more contributors, more users, and more advocates.
So, I think this is an important project with different benefits than a
packaging system designed specifically to deploy and undeploy different
configurations of software, and I hope you can continue working on it.
-john
--
John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 61A0963B | http://status.fsf.org/johns | http://fsf.org/blogs/RSS
Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at
<http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=8096>.
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, (continued)
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Ludovic Courtès, 2012/11/26
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Richard Stallman, 2012/11/26
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Brandon Invergo, 2012/11/26
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Adam Spiers, 2012/11/30
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Brandon Invergo, 2012/11/30
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Adam Spiers, 2012/11/30
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Adam Sampson, 2012/11/26
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Ludovic Courtès, 2012/11/26
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Adam Spiers, 2012/11/30
- Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Adam Sampson, 2012/11/30
Re: Introducing GNU Guix,
John Sullivan <=
Re: Introducing GNU Guix, Luca Saiu, 2012/11/23