From: John Kehayias via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." <guix-devel@gnu.org>
To: "Felix Lechner via \"Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System
distribution.\"" <guix-devel@gnu.org>
Cc: Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>,
Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com>,
Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>,
Cayetano Santos <csantosb@inventati.org>,
Greg Hogan <code@greghogan.com>
Subject: Re: On the quest for a new release model
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:38:38 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87a5cz6o31.fsf@protonmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87ed2bkwpz.fsf@lease-up.com>
Hi all,
On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 03:08 PM, Felix Lechner via \"Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.\" wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 13 2024, Ricardo Wurmus wrote:
>
>> Our releases should mean something.
>
> What do they mean, please?
>
This is actually related to the topic I wanted to bring up before we really get lost in the details of release building and so on.
I've always thought about Guix as a rolling distribution, where our "releases" are essentially installer "snapshots." In other words, the installer has maybe gotten improvements and certainly been thoroughly tested along with good substitute coverage and functionality across all (or as much as we can muster) of Guix. This tagged version is important to make sure there is binary substitute downloads (and maybe a corresponding manual online).
There is no expectation, nor really support, for staying on a "release." One is expected (and warned by guix even) to occasionally at least run "guix pull" if not upgrading, reconfiguring, etc. However, we do have powerful tools for staying at some particular commit, through time-machine, channel pinning, and so on.
I think what I wrote above is where we are currently at, though this perhaps is not documented explicitly as it should be. Many times the question comes up about a Guix "release" and missing that we are really a rolling distribution. Clearly there is room to improve here.
Is this something we agree on? I think being clear what Guix is (in terms of "releases"), and what we want it to be, is essential first.
That is my understanding above, and if that's what we want to continue with, we should say so clearly in the manual, finally resolve the confusing different manual version links, and be clear what a "release" is for Guix. I would move to revise our terminology to something like an "installer" version or "installation snapshot." (I don't see us having the resources to fully support releases as in a versioned distro, at this time.)
Just my 2 insignificant-currency-units, happy to hear this discussed further!
John
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-12-14 1:39 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2023-02-09 12:19 Discussion notes on releases and branches Andreas Enge
2023-02-12 21:13 ` Moving forward with teams and feature branches (was: Discussion notes on releases and branches) Josselin Poiret
2023-02-12 21:34 ` Andreas Enge
2023-02-13 9:32 ` Time for RFC? (was Re: Moving forward with teams and feature branches (was: Discussion notes on releases and branches)) zimoun
2023-02-13 14:07 ` Moving forward with teams and feature branches (was: Discussion notes on releases and branches) Andreas Enge
2023-02-14 19:12 ` Leo Famulari
2023-02-13 9:22 ` Release (was " Simon Tournier
2023-02-14 10:14 ` Rust team branch " Efraim Flashner
2023-02-14 16:36 ` Rust team branch Andreas Enge
2023-02-14 20:07 ` Efraim Flashner
2023-02-16 10:56 ` Andreas Enge
2023-02-14 16:36 ` Rust team branch (was Re: Discussion notes on releases and branches) Katherine Cox-Buday
2023-02-14 20:08 ` Efraim Flashner
2023-02-15 17:49 ` Katherine Cox-Buday
2023-03-17 15:24 ` Discussion notes on releases and branches Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2023-03-18 17:42 ` Leo Famulari
2024-12-13 8:37 ` On the quest for a new release model (was: Discussion notes on releases and branches) Cayetano Santos
2024-12-13 12:03 ` On the quest for a new release model Ricardo Wurmus
2024-12-13 13:01 ` Suhail Singh
2024-12-13 15:21 ` Greg Hogan
2024-12-13 15:52 ` Suhail Singh
2024-12-13 16:05 ` Suhail Singh
2024-12-13 16:28 ` Cayetano Santos
2024-12-13 17:21 ` Suhail Singh
2024-12-13 20:34 ` Cayetano Santos
2024-12-13 22:13 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2024-12-13 22:27 ` Suhail Singh
2024-12-13 23:08 ` Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2024-12-14 1:38 ` John Kehayias via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution. [this message]
2024-12-13 16:04 ` Simon Josefsson via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2024-12-13 17:47 ` Suhail Singh
2024-12-13 20:14 ` Tomas Volf
2024-12-13 22:13 ` Suhail Singh
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://guix.gnu.org/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=87a5cz6o31.fsf@protonmail.com \
--to=guix-devel@gnu.org \
--cc=code@greghogan.com \
--cc=csantosb@inventati.org \
--cc=felix.lechner@lease-up.com \
--cc=john.kehayias@protonmail.com \
--cc=rekado@elephly.net \
--cc=suhailsingh247@gmail.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).