[PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis]

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Hello

I would like to contribute packages for two programs:

* xscreenshot which takes a screenshot and saves it as .if format
* imagefile which contains a few programs to convert .if to gif, png

Thank you!

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-gnu-Add-xscreenshot.patch --]
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From ee624abf3aada75b5fa234eec0b28fd5e2c561b0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alf Levan <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:34:44 +0100
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add xscreenshot.

* gnu/packages/suckless.scm (xscreenshot): New variable.
---
 gnu/packages/suckless.scm | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 30 insertions(+)

diff --git a/gnu/packages/suckless.scm b/gnu/packages/suckless.scm
index c921f8e..6a4a03d 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/suckless.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/suckless.scm
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
   #:use-module ((guix licenses) #:prefix license:)
   #:use-module (guix packages)
   #:use-module (guix download)
+  #:use-module (guix git-download)
   #:use-module (guix build-system gnu)
   #:use-module (gnu packages)
   #:use-module (gnu packages xorg)
@@ -189,3 +190,32 @@ implements 256 colors, most VT10X escape sequences, utf8, X11 copy/paste,
 antialiased fonts (using fontconfig), fallback fonts, resizing, and line
 drawing.")
     (license license:x11)))
+
+(define-public xscreenshot
+  (package
+    (name "xscreenshot")
+    (version "1.0")
+    (source (origin
+	     (method git-fetch)
+	     (uri (git-reference
+		   (url "git://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot")
+		   (commit "cb8ad23")))
+	     (sha256
+	      (base32
+	       "1sqhxybzi8mmb0jg78swp0vpbdiqhckd283k33lfffsd0lkgch88"))))
+    (build-system gnu-build-system)
+    (arguments
+     '(#:tests? #f ; no tests
+       #:make-flags (list "CC=gcc"
+                          (string-append "PREFIX=" %output))
+       #:phases
+       (modify-phases %standard-phases
+         (delete 'configure))))
+    (inputs
+     `(("libx11" ,libx11)))
+    (native-inputs `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)))
+    (home-page "http://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot/")
+    (synopsis "Make screenshot")
+    (description
+     "xscreenshot is a simple screenshot utility. It writes image data to stdout.")
+    (license license:x11)))
-- 
2.4.3


[-- Attachment #3: 0002-gnu-Add-imagefile.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2020 bytes --]

From f055c4759017b6198b2c460c1669e461c3ed8148 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alf Levan <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:39:07 +0100
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] gnu: Add imagefile.

* gnu/packages/suckless.scm (imagefile): New variable.
---
 gnu/packages/suckless.scm | 35 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 34 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/gnu/packages/suckless.scm b/gnu/packages/suckless.scm
index 6a4a03d..0ea877f 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/suckless.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/suckless.scm
@@ -27,7 +27,8 @@
   #:use-module (gnu packages xorg)
   #:use-module (gnu packages fonts)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pkg-config)
-  #:use-module (gnu packages fontutils))
+  #:use-module (gnu packages fontutils)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages image))
 
 (define-public dwm
   (package
@@ -219,3 +220,35 @@ drawing.")
     (description
      "xscreenshot is a simple screenshot utility. It writes image data to stdout.")
     (license license:x11)))
+
+(define-public imagefile
+  (package
+    (name "imagefile")
+    (version "1.0")
+    (source (origin
+	     (method git-fetch)
+	     (uri (git-reference
+		   (url "git://git.2f30.org/imagefile")
+		   (commit "787ebb0")))
+	     (sha256
+	      (base32
+	       "1lk8wk8qzdqn1dw37vk7p2v63mj94fpc0h5dvjqlzdsz2cblgzcb"))))
+    (build-system gnu-build-system)
+    (arguments
+     '(#:tests? #f ; no tests
+       #:make-flags (list "CC=gcc"
+                          (string-append "PREFIX=" %output))
+       #:phases
+       (modify-phases %standard-phases
+         (delete 'configure))))
+    (inputs
+     `(("libx11" ,libx11)
+       ("libpng" ,libpng)
+       ("giflib" ,giflib)
+       ("libjpeg" ,libjpeg)))
+    (native-inputs `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)))
+    (home-page "http://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot/")
+    (synopsis "Utilities to convert imagefile format")
+    (description
+     "The imagefile-format is meant to be parsed easily and used to pipe images losslessly.")
+    (license license:isc)))
-- 
2.4.3

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Guix-Bot]

Hello,

This is Guix-Bot, a bot meant to put Guix reviewers out of a job. I reviewed
your patch, and here is what I can tell you about it:

PATCH: /home/cyril/guix/0001-gnu-Add-xscreenshot.patch:
- The patch can be applied on top of master.
- The compilation succeeded.
- Guix lint failed:
gnu/packages/suckless.scm:220:5: xscreenshot-1.0: sentences in description should be followed by two spaces; possible infraction at 42

Guix review bot

[Ludovic Courtès]

Guix-Bot <tipecaml@gmail.com> skribis:

> This is Guix-Bot, a bot meant to put Guix reviewers out of a job. I reviewed
> your patch, and here is what I can tell you about it:
>
> PATCH: /home/cyril/guix/0001-gnu-Add-xscreenshot.patch:
> - The patch can be applied on top of master.
> - The compilation succeeded.
> - Guix lint failed:
> gnu/packages/suckless.scm:220:5: xscreenshot-1.0: sentences in description should be followed by two spaces; possible infraction at 42

That sounds neat!  Could you tell us more about it?

Ludo’.

Re: Guix review bot

[Cyril Roelandt]

On 08/18/2015 05:22 PM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Guix-Bot <tipecaml@gmail.com> skribis:
> 
>> This is Guix-Bot, a bot meant to put Guix reviewers out of a job. I reviewed
>> your patch, and here is what I can tell you about it:
>>
>> PATCH: /home/cyril/guix/0001-gnu-Add-xscreenshot.patch:
>> - The patch can be applied on top of master.
>> - The compilation succeeded.
>> - Guix lint failed:
>> gnu/packages/suckless.scm:220:5: xscreenshot-1.0: sentences in description should be followed by two spaces; possible infraction at 42
> 
> That sounds neat!  Could you tell us more about it?
> 

Well, I wanted to have automatic reviews for certain patches, so I wrote
a quick and dirty piece of Python code that, given an email, extracts a
patch from it, applies it on top of master, and runs "make" and "guix
lint <pkg>".

The idea was to use offlineimap to check my guix directory on a regular
basis, and inotify to trigger the Python code whenever a new mail was
fetched.

In the end, it is a bit more complex than what I thought, because there
are lots of ways to send a patch: there are different possible
encodings, one might send a patch attached to an email, or attach a
patch generated using git format-patch, or use git send-email... Also,
the code I wrote is Guix-centric, and it might be nice to have an
agnostic tool instead.

I think patchwork[1] does a nice job of keeping track of threads in
mailing-lists (which my tool cannot do at the moment), but I don't know
if it can trigger a CI build. Also, Qemu seems to have some sort of
email-based CI, but I am not sure what version is the "right" one (there
are forks at https://github.com/aliguori/patches,
https://github.com/stefanha/patches/tree/stefanha-tweaks and probably
some other places). There is also https://github.com/famz/patchew, but
it seems to require Docker...


tl;dr: I'm not sure exactly what the right tool to use is :)

Cyril.

[1] http://jk.ozlabs.org/projects/patchwork/

Re: Guix review bot

[Ludovic Courtès]

Cyril Roelandt <tipecaml@gmail.com> skribis:

> Well, I wanted to have automatic reviews for certain patches, so I wrote
> a quick and dirty piece of Python code that, given an email, extracts a
> patch from it, applies it on top of master, and runs "make" and "guix
> lint <pkg>".
>
> The idea was to use offlineimap to check my guix directory on a regular
> basis, and inotify to trigger the Python code whenever a new mail was
> fetched.

Nice!

> In the end, it is a bit more complex than what I thought, because there
> are lots of ways to send a patch: there are different possible
> encodings, one might send a patch attached to an email, or attach a
> patch generated using git format-patch, or use git send-email... Also,
> the code I wrote is Guix-centric, and it might be nice to have an
> agnostic tool instead.

Well, not a problem for us.  ;-)

> I think patchwork[1] does a nice job of keeping track of threads in
> mailing-lists (which my tool cannot do at the moment), but I don't know
> if it can trigger a CI build. Also, Qemu seems to have some sort of
> email-based CI, but I am not sure what version is the "right" one (there
> are forks at https://github.com/aliguori/patches,
> https://github.com/stefanha/patches/tree/stefanha-tweaks and probably
> some other places). There is also https://github.com/famz/patchew, but
> it seems to require Docker...

I head good stuff about QEMU’s ‘patches’ thing (it also has an Emacs
interface IIRC.)  If somebody is interested in it, it would be great to
set it up for Guix.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Guix-Bot]

Hello,

This is Guix-Bot, a bot meant to put Guix reviewers out of a job. I reviewed
your patch, and here is what I can tell you about it:

PATCH: /home/cyril/guix/0002-gnu-Add-imagefile.patch:
- The patch can be applied on top of master.
- The compilation succeeded.
- No issue while running additional checks.

This patch looks good, someone will probably push it!

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Guix-Bot]

Hello,

This is Guix-Bot, a bot meant to put Guix reviewers out of a job. I reviewed
your patch, and here is what I can tell you about it:

PATCH: /home/cyril/guix/0001-gnu-Add-xscreenshot.patch:
- The patch can be applied on top of master.
- The compilation succeeded.
- Guix lint failed:
gnu/packages/suckless.scm:220:5: xscreenshot-1.0: sentences in description should be followed by two spaces; possible infraction at 42

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Guix-Bot]

Hello,

This is Guix-Bot, a bot meant to put Guix reviewers out of a job. I reviewed
your patch, and here is what I can tell you about it:

PATCH: /home/cyril/guix/0002-gnu-Add-imagefile.patch:
- The patch can be applied on top of master.
- The compilation succeeded.
- No issue while running additional checks.

This patch looks good, someone will probably push it!

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Mark H Weaver]

Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com> writes:
> * xscreenshot which takes a screenshot and saves it as .if format
> * imagefile which contains a few programs to convert .if to gif, png

Honestly, I'm doubtful whether our users will have any interest in these
programs.  I'm not aware of any other GNU/Linux distribution that
includes them.  I've never heard of the .if format before, and
apparently the only purpose for this 'imagefile' tool will be to convert
the output of 'xscreenshot' into something that other programs can
understand.  There already exist other established, simple formats like
'xpm' for when a simple, transparent, and lossless format is desired.

Also, there are several other existing programs called 'xscreenshot'.

> From ee624abf3aada75b5fa234eec0b28fd5e2c561b0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Alf Levan <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:34:44 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add xscreenshot.
>
> * gnu/packages/suckless.scm (xscreenshot): New variable.

Do these programs have any relationship to suckless.org other than
apparently being guided by a similar philosophy?

> +(define-public xscreenshot
> +  (package
> +    (name "xscreenshot")
> +    (version "1.0")
> +    (source (origin
> +	     (method git-fetch)
> +	     (uri (git-reference
> +		   (url "git://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot")
> +		   (commit "cb8ad23")))
> +	     (sha256
> +	      (base32
> +	       "1sqhxybzi8mmb0jg78swp0vpbdiqhckd283k33lfffsd0lkgch88"))))

Is there any basis for choosing the version number "1.0" for this
commit?  Apparently upstream produces no releases, and there are no tags
in the git repo either.

> +(define-public imagefile
> +  (package
> +    (name "imagefile")
> +    (version "1.0")

Ditto.

> +    (source (origin
> +	     (method git-fetch)
> +	     (uri (git-reference
> +		   (url "git://git.2f30.org/imagefile")
> +		   (commit "787ebb0")))
> +	     (sha256
> +	      (base32
> +	       "1lk8wk8qzdqn1dw37vk7p2v63mj94fpc0h5dvjqlzdsz2cblgzcb"))))
> +    (build-system gnu-build-system)
> +    (arguments
> +     '(#:tests? #f ; no tests
> +       #:make-flags (list "CC=gcc"
> +                          (string-append "PREFIX=" %output))
> +       #:phases
> +       (modify-phases %standard-phases
> +         (delete 'configure))))
> +    (inputs
> +     `(("libx11" ,libx11)
> +       ("libpng" ,libpng)
> +       ("giflib" ,giflib)
> +       ("libjpeg" ,libjpeg)))
> +    (native-inputs `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)))
> +    (home-page "http://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot/")

This is the wrong home-page URL.

> +    (synopsis "Utilities to convert imagefile format")
> +    (description
> +     "The imagefile-format is meant to be parsed easily and used to pipe images losslessly.")
> +    (license license:isc)))

Anyway, I'm not sure we have any interest in these programs.
What do other people think?

    Mark

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Alex Kost]

Mark H Weaver (2015-07-29 18:51 +0300) wrote:

> Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com> writes:
>> * xscreenshot which takes a screenshot and saves it as .if format
>> * imagefile which contains a few programs to convert .if to gif, png
>
> Honestly, I'm doubtful whether our users will have any interest in these
> programs.  I'm not aware of any other GNU/Linux distribution that
> includes them.  I've never heard of the .if format before, and
> apparently the only purpose for this 'imagefile' tool will be to convert
> the output of 'xscreenshot' into something that other programs can
> understand.  There already exist other established, simple formats like
> 'xpm' for when a simple, transparent, and lossless format is desired.
>
> Also, there are several other existing programs called 'xscreenshot'.
>
>> From ee624abf3aada75b5fa234eec0b28fd5e2c561b0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
>> From: Alf Levan <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com>
>> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:34:44 +0100
>> Subject: [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add xscreenshot.
>>
>> * gnu/packages/suckless.scm (xscreenshot): New variable.
>
> Do these programs have any relationship to suckless.org other than
> apparently being guided by a similar philosophy?

I was wondering too :-)

>> +(define-public xscreenshot
>> +  (package
>> +    (name "xscreenshot")
>> +    (version "1.0")
>> +    (source (origin
>> +	     (method git-fetch)
>> +	     (uri (git-reference
>> +		   (url "git://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot")
>> +		   (commit "cb8ad23")))
>> +	     (sha256
>> +	      (base32
>> +	       "1sqhxybzi8mmb0jg78swp0vpbdiqhckd283k33lfffsd0lkgch88"))))
>
> Is there any basis for choosing the version number "1.0" for this
> commit?  Apparently upstream produces no releases, and there are no tags
> in the git repo either.

Unlike the other package ("imagefile"), there is a mention of version
for this one in <http://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot/plain/config.mk>.

[...]
> Anyway, I'm not sure we have any interest in these programs.
> What do other people think?

Sorry, I noticed this message after sending mine.  I personally have no
interest in these programs as well as in the most of the other programs
that exist in the world.  But you'll never know, perhaps it will be
useful for someone.

-- 
Alex

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Mark H Weaver]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com> writes:
>> * xscreenshot which takes a screenshot and saves it as .if format
>> * imagefile which contains a few programs to convert .if to gif, png
>
> Honestly, I'm doubtful whether our users will have any interest in these
> programs.

I received a private email suggesting that my response here was
unfriendly.  I'm sorry that it came off that way, because that was not
my intent.  I'm just trying to express my opinion honestly.

I've since looked closer at xscreenshot.  Its final commit was the day
after its initial commit, which was almost exactly one year ago.  In
that time, the only references I can find to it in a web search are:

(1) a few messages on the suckless email list within a day or so after
    it was written
(2) the current discussion on guix-devel, a year later

and that's it.  So, what we have here is a program with a two day commit
history that produces a novel format that apparently nobody uses, and
I've been unable to find any discussion about it in the year since then.

Do other people think that such programs belong in Guix?
Am I being an ungrateful ass?

      Mark

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Pjotr Prins]

How about creating a policy that people can refer to? 

One of the great things about Guix is that is is accessible and
hackable, unlike most other packaging systems. Guix encourages
contributions and I think it is great that someone comes out of
nowhere and submits a package in the Guix way. If there is nothing
wrong with the package expression we can take the submission
seriously.

I don't think we can accept/reject packages on use or usefulness.  I,
for one, will submit bioinformatics packages which may be meaningless
to 99.9999% of (eventual) Guix users. Are you saying it does not have
a right to go in because core maintainers do not see the benefit?

I think we should focus on compliance, i.e., the package expression
itself and the license, and maybe audit suspect software for not being
a spam/worm/virus. Otherwise I think we should be neutral in what
other people consider important. It is a bit of evolution
too. Unmaintained, defunct or nasty software gets removed eventually.

So, what would be a good policy for accepting/rejecting software
packages?

I favour accepting packages by default, provided the license is
acceptable, and remove them again if too many people complain *after*
using a package or *after* auditing the software itself for
maliciousness. We need to accept by default since we don't have the
time to go through all software source code *every* time.

I don't favour a policy of core maintainers deciding on what package
should go in, or not, in ad hoc fashion. I also don't favour a policy
of rigorous mentoring and acceptance, such as used by the Debian
project.

So, what is great about Guix? And what would be a suitable policy?

Pj.

On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 10:58:18PM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
> 
> > Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com> writes:
> >> * xscreenshot which takes a screenshot and saves it as .if format
> >> * imagefile which contains a few programs to convert .if to gif, png
> >
> > Honestly, I'm doubtful whether our users will have any interest in these
> > programs.
> 
> I received a private email suggesting that my response here was
> unfriendly.  I'm sorry that it came off that way, because that was not
> my intent.  I'm just trying to express my opinion honestly.
> 
> I've since looked closer at xscreenshot.  Its final commit was the day
> after its initial commit, which was almost exactly one year ago.  In
> that time, the only references I can find to it in a web search are:
> 
> (1) a few messages on the suckless email list within a day or so after
>     it was written
> (2) the current discussion on guix-devel, a year later
> 
> and that's it.  So, what we have here is a program with a two day commit
> history that produces a novel format that apparently nobody uses, and
> I've been unable to find any discussion about it in the year since then.
> 
> Do other people think that such programs belong in Guix?
> Am I being an ungrateful ass?
> 
>       Mark
> 

-- 

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Cyril Roelandt]

On 07/30/2015 09:04 AM, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> How about creating a policy that people can refer to? 

Well, I'm not sure we want to add any bureaucracy :)

Apart from that, I completely agree with your post, there is no reason
to reject xscreenshot (yet).


Cyril.

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Andreas Enge]

Hello all,

chiming in a bit late for lack of time earlier.

First of all, thanks, Alf, for joining us and proposing a package. It is
a bit unfortunate that your first contribution turned out to be a bit
controversial, and I hope this will not discourage you from taking part
in the endeavour in the future!

In general, I agree with the policy that free software that is of use to
someone can be included. Usually, the fact that someone makes the effort
to package it can be seen as a proof of usefulness... I suppose you are
using this software and have not just packaged it as an exercise, Alf?

On the other hand, I slightly doubt this your sentence, Pjotr:

On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 09:04:05AM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> Unmaintained, defunct or nasty software gets removed eventually.

Lately I am a bit fed up with software that does not build on hydra (be it
on mips or even mainstream architectures), with the last release dating
sometimes a decade back and that nobody bothers to fix (without an active
upstream, that is not a very rewarding activity anyway). Some of these
might not even currently have users, if the initial submitter has walked
away. So I think we should not hesitate to remove software a bit more
aggressively in the future.

Given the facts that Mark researched (two lonely commits a year ago, not
even a single release) xscreenshot seems to fall into the "unmaintained"
category, and I am not exactly enthusiastic about adding it. It not being
in Debian, while not the only criterion, is another hint.

Andreas

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Pjotr Prins]

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 07:59:07PM +0200, Andreas Enge wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 09:04:05AM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> > Unmaintained, defunct or nasty software gets removed eventually.
> 
> Lately I am a bit fed up with software that does not build on hydra (be it
> on mips or even mainstream architectures), with the last release dating
> sometimes a decade back and that nobody bothers to fix (without an active
> upstream, that is not a very rewarding activity anyway). Some of these
> might not even currently have users, if the initial submitter has walked
> away. So I think we should not hesitate to remove software a bit more
> aggressively in the future.

I think this agrees with my statement ;). Aggressive removing of
broken software is a pretty good idea.

> Given the facts that Mark researched (two lonely commits a year ago, not
> even a single release) xscreenshot seems to fall into the "unmaintained"
> category, and I am not exactly enthusiastic about adding it. It not being
> in Debian, while not the only criterion, is another hint.

Yeah. But it is up to the submitter, indeed. If he maintains it, who
are we to argue?

Pj.

-- 

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Do other people think that such programs belong in Guix?

IMO if it's free software, builds correctly, and doesn't fail at the
execution, It's OK to have them in Guix because even if it's not
maintained or seems useless.

Maybe when Guix will achieve the beta stage and/or have too
many packages :), things will have to be reconsidered. But fornow I
think it's always good to have newcomers packaging stuff.

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Packaging vs. Maintaining (was: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile)

[Jeff Mickey]

* Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> [2015-07-29 19:58]:
> Do other people think that such programs belong in Guix?

I've only gotten 1 package into guix so far, so take my thoughts with a
grain of salt.

I liked the Arch model[0] when I was a dev: core, extra, community +
AUR.[1] The AUR I would credit with a vast amount of Arch's early
popularity as it got lots of software packaged before devs had time to
get to it, but it includes lots of non-free software.

To show how drastic their split is, here are the arch package numbers
for i686:

Core - 209 packages. (linux, linux, bash, mkfs, ssh etc)

Extra - 3141 packages. (emacs, vim, X, firefox, kde/gnome etc)

Community/AUR - 61251 packages. 4014 audited binary packages, 57237!
source packages that are unaudited and pacman doesn't build them for
you.

There are many pieces of software. There is only a finite amount of
development commitment. Arch namespacing their packages by dev
commitment is a successful example of managing this.

Guix could use a policy (and package namespacing?) that delineates this
commitment so that contributions can be accepted without
misunderstanding.

My random stab at a delineation:

- 'core' and 'extra' - I like arch's definition for these. Highly
  selective and essential that all packages in core are tested and in
  working order. Extra is a statement of the devs commitment currently
  working on guix, and includes the vast majority of the GuixSD software
  stack.

- 'community' - Due to guix's source based architecture, this is the
  software that meets guix's licensing goals, coding standards, and
  compiles/runs. The packages may or may not be up to date, and are not
  actively maintained by guix developers, but are popular with the
  community and built with hydra.

There is room for another even wider set, a guix-users.git or something
that contains the long tail of packages like the AUR. With
GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH this may be as easy as a git repo with some base
submission guidelines.

Sorry that went long - just some thoughts.

  //  codemac

[0]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_repositories
[1]: https://aur.archlinux.org

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Mark H Weaver]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
> Do other people think that such programs belong in Guix?

Okay, it seems that the general feeling is that we should accept these
programs, so I'll go along with that.  I guess I should apologize for
making you feel unwelcome.  My social skills leave much to be desired.

Anyway, the remaining issues to resolve are:

* You should add your copyright notice to suckless.scm.

* The version numbers should not be 1.0 unless there is either a tarball
  release or a tag in the git repo that marks this commit as being
  version 1.0.  If there are no tarball releases and no tags, then the
  version strings should probably be of the form "YYYYMMDD.<commit>".
  Putting the date in front is important so that version numbers can be
  compared correctly by the "guix package -u" command.

* As Alex pointed out, the license on 'xscreenshot' is actually the
  expat license, not the X11 license, so the license field needs to be
  fixed.

* As Alex pointed out, the description lines should be wrapped to keep
  the sources within 80 columns.

Would you like to send updated patches?

     Mark

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Ludovic Courtès]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:

> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>> Do other people think that such programs belong in Guix?
>
> Okay, it seems that the general feeling is that we should accept these
> programs, so I'll go along with that.

I agree with that: a free program that someone finds useful is welcome.

So far we haven’t made any judgment based on the feature set, design
choices, or popularity of the package being submitted.  That’s something
to avoid IMO if the distro is to be useful and inclusive.

But of course, if a package recipe in Guix eventually becomes
unmaintained, or has unfixed security issues, it becomes an obvious
candidate for removal.

Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis: thanks for inadvertently starting the debate,
;-) and feel welcome to submit an updated patch!

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: [PATCH] xscreenshot and imagefile

[Alex Kost]

Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis (2015-07-27 20:50 +0300) wrote:

> Hello
>
> I would like to contribute packages for two programs:
>
> * xscreenshot which takes a screenshot and saves it as .if format
> * imagefile which contains a few programs to convert .if to gif, png

Hello, thanks for contributing!

> From ee624abf3aada75b5fa234eec0b28fd5e2c561b0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Alf Levan <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:34:44 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add xscreenshot.
>
> * gnu/packages/suckless.scm (xscreenshot): New variable.

Please add a copyright line for yourself to "suckless.scm" in the first
patch:

;;; Copyright © 2015 Alf Levan <orchid.hybrid@gmail.com>

BTW is it "Alf Levan" (as in the commits) or "Orchidaceae Phalaenopsis"
(as in the emails)?

[...]
> +(define-public xscreenshot
> +  (package
> +    (name "xscreenshot")
> +    (version "1.0")
> +    (source (origin
> +	     (method git-fetch)
> +	     (uri (git-reference
> +		   (url "git://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot")
> +		   (commit "cb8ad23")))

I think it is better to use "1.0.cb8ad23" for version, so:

(let ((commit "cb8ad23"))
  (package ...))

See 'guix-devel' package, for example.  The same for 'imagefile'
package.

> +	     (sha256
> +	      (base32
> +	       "1sqhxybzi8mmb0jg78swp0vpbdiqhckd283k33lfffsd0lkgch88"))))
> +    (build-system gnu-build-system)
> +    (arguments
> +     '(#:tests? #f ; no tests
> +       #:make-flags (list "CC=gcc"
> +                          (string-append "PREFIX=" %output))
> +       #:phases
> +       (modify-phases %standard-phases
> +         (delete 'configure))))
> +    (inputs
> +     `(("libx11" ,libx11)))
> +    (native-inputs `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)))
> +    (home-page "http://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot/")
> +    (synopsis "Make screenshot")
> +    (description
> +     "xscreenshot is a simple screenshot utility. It writes image data to stdout.")

Description lines for both packages are too long, please fill to 72-78
column.

> +    (license license:x11)))

AFAICS <http://git.2f30.org/xscreenshot/plain/LICENSE> is the same as
<http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:Expat>, so it should be 'expat',
not 'x11'.

[...]
> +(define-public imagefile
> +  (package
> +    (name "imagefile")
> +    (version "1.0")

This thing doesn't mention any version in the source code at all, so I
don't know, maybe just use "0.787ebb0" (with the used commit).  What do
others think?

-- 
Alex