No, this is not a bug. specification->package always returns the latest version of a package and has no way of knowing what variable(s) that package object is bound to.

On April 21, 2024 8:02:50 AM PDT, Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> wrote:

Hi,

On Sat, Apr 20 2024, Ian Eure wrote:

If an operating-system’s packages includes `(specification->package
"nss-certs")', this causes breakage, because that form selects version
3.98, but %base-packages includes 3.88.1, which causes an error on the
next `guix system reconfigure' due to conflicting package versions in
the profile.

Why does the unversioned stringy selector (specification->package
"nss-certs") resolve to a version different from the unversioned
variable nss-certs?  Is that a bug?

Kind regards
Felix

P.S. I hoped to use the word "reified" but did not know how it fit in.