From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ricardo Wurmus Subject: Re: [Orchestration][RFC] A simple draft for channels Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 14:41:34 +0100 Message-ID: <87muz2dfu9.fsf@elephly.net> References: <87bmhq6ytg.fsf@mdc-berlin.de> <87shar5wp8.fsf@gmail.com> <20180319120400.GA13807@thebird.nl> <20180320070224.GA20987@thebird.nl> <87r2ofc9lu.fsf@elephly.net> <20180320131037.GA22625@thebird.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48338) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eyIFP-0006Ax-Gh for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Mar 2018 10:28:20 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eyIFL-0001eS-DN for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Mar 2018 10:28:19 -0400 Received: from sender-of-o51.zoho.com ([135.84.80.216]:21138) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eyIFL-0001dU-3s for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Mar 2018 10:28:15 -0400 In-reply-to: <20180320131037.GA22625@thebird.nl> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Pjotr Prins Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org, Ricardo Wurmus Pjotr Prins writes: >> I don=E2=80=99t think this should be the only mechanism through which pe= ople can >> provide channels. I wouldn=E2=80=99t want to have to essentially fork G= uix. >> For a user this is a problem, too, because channels would no longer be >> composable (today I can compose multiple package collections with >> GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH). > > I am not sure composability is required for most use cases. I think we > should keep it simple. I am happy to have channels act independently > if we can get it this year. Yes, it=E2=80=99s not a big feature as there are practical limits to compos= ing multiple channels. However, simple composition can come in handy. At the MDC, for example, we strictly separate non-free software from free software variants that are not available in Guix upstream. Users can add one or both of these package repositories. This would not be easy with the proposed =E2=80=9CGuix fork as channel=E2=80=9D implementatio= n. That said, I think that having a more featureful =E2=80=9Cguix pull=E2=80= =9D is a good goal in itself. Even better if this happens to scratch your itch wrt channels already. -- Ricardo GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6 2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC https://elephly.net