Policy to remove broken packages

Policy to remove broken packages

[zimoun]

Dear,

After Guix Days 2019, the idea of having an informal policy to remove
broken packages had emerged.  Quoting the initial Björn's message [1]:

        > If a package is broken for  more than 6 months, we should just
        > remove it from Guix. Prior  to removing, we should announce on
        > the  dev  mailing  list,  maybe someone  will  care  about  it
        > then. If there is no response within 2 weeks, we really remove
        > it.

And we all agreed. :-)

How to make it happen?  Where is the correct place to mark list them:
Data Service or Cuirass?


1: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-02/msg00019.html


All the best,
simon

Re: Policy to remove broken packages

[Christopher Baines]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1197 bytes --]


zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Dear,
>
> After Guix Days 2019, the idea of having an informal policy to remove
> broken packages had emerged.  Quoting the initial Björn's message [1]:
>
>         > If a package is broken for  more than 6 months, we should just
>         > remove it from Guix. Prior  to removing, we should announce on
>         > the  dev  mailing  list,  maybe someone  will  care  about  it
>         > then. If there is no response within 2 weeks, we really remove
>         > it.
>
> And we all agreed. :-)
>
> How to make it happen?  Where is the correct place to mark list them:
> Data Service or Cuirass?
>
>
> 1: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-02/msg00019.html

Do you have any examples of packages that are currently broken, and
which you'd like to remove?

My general views on broken packages is that it would be helpful to have
more information at the time changes are being made, like big version
upgrades. That might allow less things to be broken, or work arounds to
be put in place before things are broken, rather than trying to find
someone to fix the package after 6 months.

Thanks,

Chris

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 962 bytes --]

Re: Policy to remove broken packages

[Pierre Neidhardt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 358 bytes --]

One example is DXVK, but it would be really nice to fix it instead of
removing it.  It broke with a Wine update (and now the newest DXVK
versions won't build even with an older Wine).
To fix it, we "simply" need a mingw compilation toolchain.  Which we seem
to have, but I don't understand how to use it.

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 487 bytes --]

Re: Policy to remove broken packages

[Jack Hill]

On Sat, 20 Jun 2020, Christopher Baines wrote:

> Do you have any examples of packages that are currently broken, and
> which you'd like to remove?

Perhaps mongo-tools: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/39637

It broke when Go was upgraded to 1.13, and changed the test library. I 
fixed some other Go packages that ran into this issue, but it wasn't as 
easy for mongo-tools. Our version is old, so it should be updated. For 
various reasons, I don't see this package being fixed in the short term.

Best,
Jack

Re: Policy to remove broken packages

[Christopher Baines]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1215 bytes --]


Jack Hill <jackhill@jackhill.us> writes:

> On Sat, 20 Jun 2020, Christopher Baines wrote:
>
>> Do you have any examples of packages that are currently broken, and
>> which you'd like to remove?
>
> Perhaps mongo-tools: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/39637
>
> It broke when Go was upgraded to 1.13, and changed the test library. I
> fixed some other Go packages that ran into this issue, but it wasn't
> as easy for mongo-tools. Our version is old, so it should be
> updated. For various reasons, I don't see this package being fixed in
> the short term.

mongo-tools is definitely failing to build, and it has been since the
11th of Feb (2020) I think.

It seems like you got further in understanding this than I did. Given
that this seems like a test failure, and I don't think there's anything
to suggest that the actual functionality doesn't work, the course of
action I see here is to disable either the failing tests, or running the
test suite entirely.

I originally packaged MongoDB and mongo-tools for Guix, but that was
before the licence of MongoDB changed, so I'm not sure about the long
term future of the packages. Keeping the packages we have actually
building though is still useful.

Thanks,

Chris

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 962 bytes --]

Re: Policy to remove broken packages

[Leo Famulari]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 06:06:44PM +0100, Christopher Baines wrote:
> It seems like you got further in understanding this than I did. Given
> that this seems like a test failure, and I don't think there's anything
> to suggest that the actual functionality doesn't work, the course of
> action I see here is to disable either the failing tests, or running the
> test suite entirely.

Not having looked into it closely, I think that, in general, test
failures do indicate that actual functionality is broken. Of course it's
a different story in many cases since the Guix build environment is so
unusual.