From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu>
Subject: Removing compilers that cannot be bootstrapped
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:54:24 -0400
Message-ID: <CAJ=RwfYrKDCbPLtQz7xrm9og7zE0BpTZ+jeX=hMvEpT4LW+hUQ@mail.gmail.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Return-path: <guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>
Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:60902)
	by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
	(envelope-from <dthompson2@worcester.edu>) id 1ai426-0004in-EX
	for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:54:27 -0400
Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71)
	(envelope-from <dthompson2@worcester.edu>) id 1ai425-0008Tf-DH
	for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:54:26 -0400
Received: from mail-yw0-x22c.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4002:c05::22c]:33432)
	by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
	(envelope-from <dthompson2@worcester.edu>) id 1ai425-0008TV-89
	for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:54:25 -0400
Received: by mail-yw0-x22c.google.com with SMTP id h65so81298233ywe.0
	for <guix-devel@gnu.org>; Mon, 21 Mar 2016 10:54:24 -0700 (PDT)
List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution."
	<guix-devel.gnu.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/options/guix-devel>,
	<mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel>
List-Post: <mailto:guix-devel@gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guix-devel>,
	<mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org
Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org
To: guix-devel <guix-devel@gnu.org>

Haskell, OCaml, Chicken, and other compilers that we package have a
serious issue that many of us are aware of: they cannot be built from
source!  They rely upon pre-built binaries of the same compiler.  I
understand that it's very inconvenient to not have these compilers
available to us, and all of the software that is written in their
respective languages, but I feel like all of our work is undermined by
making exceptions for them.  I would like to remove compilers that
don't have a bunch of dependent packages yet such as Chicken until
upstream fixes the issue.  But we have tons of Haskell packages and a
handful of OCaml packages and it would be heartbreaking to some to
remove all of that hard work.

What can we possibly do to avoid being yet another distro that relies
on a bunch of blobs (leaving the *true* bootstrap binaries out of it
for now)?

- Dave