Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Recognizing the GNU system as a free distro

[Ludovic Courtès]

"Jason Self" <address@hidden> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès said:
>> I'm reluctant because of the technical and administrative burden it
>> entails
>
> I suppose another option is to leave out problematic packages
> entirely. Otherwise, welcome to the world of being an FSF-endorsed
> distro. :)

Well the FSDG don’t go this far, or least not at this level of detail.

>> Besides, our package meta-data would probably still refer to the
>> "real" home page of the package, from which it's trivial to get the
>> unmodified tarball.
>
> I think the question isn't whether or not the users of a distro can
> leave their distro's infrastructure and install non-free or other
> programs on their own. Rather, it seems more a question of if the
> programs that the users finds through the distro are themselves
> FSDG-compliant [0].

The user interface for Guix is the ‘guix package’ command.  That command
will only ever give you FSDG-compliant packages.

What we’re really talking about it here is *how* it gives those packages.

> I agree with what Sam said regarding Parabola back in 2011 [1] that:
>
>> Consider that the software is really the source code and that the
>> binaries are just the usable machine-readable form of it. Both
>> source code and binaries should be free (the latter follows from the
>> former if all is well).

Of course, I can only agree with that.

But, what does “source code” mean here?  Does it mean the source that’s
made available using the distro tools, such as ‘apt-get source’?

[...]

> Ludovic Courtès said:
>
>> we'd need an out-of-band mechanism to maintain patches/scripts, said
>> patches/scripts would have to be reviewed separately, contributors
>> would need to have the necessary credentials to upload patched
>> tarballs, etc.
>
> I think some of this can be automated and minimized. Trisquel, for
> example, uses what they call Helpers [2]. As new versions are pulled
> in from Ubuntu the corresponding package helper is run, if one exists
> for that package. That helper is responsible for making any changes
> that are needed to the source code and repackaging it before it is
> moved into the Trisquel repositories to be compiled. In this way the
> users of the distro always have access to FSDG-compliant source code
> packages.

OK, interesting.

What kind of changes are these, typically?  Are these changes to debian/
files (such as adding new patches), or are these changes outside of the
debian/ directory?

> Is there some automated method in which Guix checks for new versions
> from upstream?

Yes, but limited to GNU packages ATM:

  http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Invoking-guix-refresh

> Perhaps this could be extended such that, for certain programs,
> they're run through some script to clean them up in a similiar
> automated fashion to Trisquel? The gnupload script [3] could then be
> used to upload them to, say, the GNU FTP server? (Perhaps in the
> non-gnu area?) In this way the process that checks for new versions
> handles the actual work. People contributing to Guix only need access
> to the version control system to maintain the "helper" for that
> program.

Right, possibly.  Food for thought...

I think what should be clarified is what we want to achieve exactly.
Currently, users can only install FSDG-compliant software.  However,
‘guix build --source’ [0], which is really a developer’s tool, returns
the unmodified upstream version.

So, do we want ‘guix build --source’ to return the already-patched,
FSDG-compliant source?

Or do we want to go further, and where?

Thanks for your input!

Ludo’.

[0] http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Invoking-guix-build