bug#25638: linux libre tarball has disappeared

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hello!

(Cc’ing linux-libre@fsfla.org.  This discussion is about Linux-libre
tarballs that vanish from ftp.gnu.org and fsfla.org:
<https://bugs.gnu.org/25638>.)

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:

> Rohit Yadav reported in
> <CAGKZdmYcHm0n7QeoyVTeXi59QeiXWgV-=OVRaz1ng-X+=cKUxw@mail.gmail.com>
> that the linux libre tarballs for version 4.4.18 are no longer
> available on any of the usual locations.  The next version that has a
> full tarball and not just a compressed diff is version “4.4.24-gnu”.
>
> The lack of this tarball doesn’t hurt most users because a substitute
> for the tarball is available on hydra, but this doesn’t help when
> building everything without substitutes.

When building without substitutes, users should end up downloading:

  https://mirror.hydra.gnu.org/file/linux-libre-4.4.18-gnu.tar.xz/sha256/0k8k17in7dkjd9d8zg3i8l1ax466dba6bxw28flxizzyq8znljps

… which is still available.

> As a short-term fix could we upload the tarball for 4.4.18 to
> ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/mirror as done before[1] for 3.3.8?
>
> [1]: https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=14851

I’ll do that if there are no objections.

That said, if doesn’t seem right if the Linux-libre people remove the
tarball from one directory at ftp.gnu.org and we add it in a different
directory the day after.  :-)

What do people think?

If disk space is a problem, I think it would be great if we could agree
on “pinning” specific versions that should never vanish from
ftp.gnu.org.  That way we could ensure future reproducibility of
Linux-libre and GuixSD.

Thanks,
Ludo’.