git-fetch for emacs-auctex?

[Paul Garlick <pgarlick@tourbillion-technology.com>]

Hi Guix,

I recently attempted to reproduce a profile containing emacs-auctex,
only to find a '404: not found' error.

The reason is that elpa.gnu.org archives previous auctex versions with
a .tar.lz extension.   This throws out the Guix package source
definition, which expects a .tar extension.

I have considered a few ideas to solve this:

i) track the last-but-one auctex version in Gnu Elpa.  This way all
versions would have the same extension.  However, would the url-fetch
method cope with the .tar.lz format?

ii) use the git-fetch method with the upstream repository.  However,
the upstream version tag at http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/auctex.git
 is a smaller number than the Gnu Elpa version tag.  This would result
in an apparent downgrade.  Would that be permissible?

iii) use the git-fetch method to clone the auctex branch of the
elpa.git repository (along the lines of 'git clone --single-branch --
branch externals/auctex .../elpa.git).  As far as I can see this is not
currently possible.

Are there any insights or suggestions?

Best regards,

Paul.