So, below are a couple of patches implementing ideas that were discussed here
and on IRC to improve the locale mess.

The first patch adds the 'GUIX_LOCPATH' environment variable, the idea being
that on foreign distros, users could set this variable instead of 'LOCPATH',
and the host distro's programs wouldn't break.

The second patch was suggested by Mark.  It basically adds "/2.22" to every
directory name specified in LOCPATH, as well as to the default locale
directory.  The idea here is that libc would only stumble on compatible
locale data.

Actually with that second patch, I think 'GUIX_LOCPATH' is unneeded, because
effectively Guix's libc would already be interpreting 'LOCPATH' differently.
So my inclination would be to apply only the second one.

Thoughts?

I'd like to get that on 'core-updates' soon so we can quickly get the better
fix.

Thanks,
Ludo'.

Ludovic Courtès (2):
  gnu: glibc: Honor 'GUIX_LOCPATH'.
  gnu: glibc: Look for locale data in versioned sub-directories.

 doc/guix.texi                                      | 23 +++++++----
 gnu-system.am                                      |  2 +
 gnu/packages/base.scm                              | 24 ++++++-----
 gnu/packages/patches/glibc-guix-locpath.patch      | 38 +++++++++++++++++
 gnu/packages/patches/glibc-versioned-locpath.patch | 47 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 5 files changed, 116 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/glibc-guix-locpath.patch
 create mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/glibc-versioned-locpath.patch

-- 
2.5.0