Re: RFC: Build system hacks for Guix do not belong in 'source'

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:

> I don't think we should be making these kinds of changes in 'snippets'.
>
> When I ask for the source code via "guix build -S <package>", I expect
> freedom fixes and other bug fixes, and maybe even enhancements needed
> for Guix that would also work fine on other systems (e.g. adding an
> environment variable).
>
> However, the package 'source' should not include build system hacks that
> are specific to Guix and would interfere with the package functionality
> on other platforms, IMO.
>
> I think that both the 'ldconfig -> true' hack and the LIBDIR
> substitution should be moved to a build phase for both of these
> packages.
>
> Other opinions?

I think one of the goals of ‘guix build -S’ is that you can take the
source and build it *on GuixSD* with hopefully few additional
modifications.

From that perspective, the “hacks” are really fixes or workarounds
(/sbin/ldconfig doesn’t exist on GuixSD.)

Now, granted, there are inelegant workarounds that we’d rather hide;
these two may well fall into this category, so I’m fine with moving them
to a build phase.  Ricardo?

Still, it’s not obvious to me where to draw the line in the
general case.

Ludo’.