Subject: Re: [bug#76377] gnu: packages: remove g-golf and nomad
From: "pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]>
To: David Pirotte <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:57:28 +0100
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

The context of this patch is a naming dispute.

David Pirotte, author of G-Golf, an excellent Guile interface to GTK,
Adwaita and GNOME libraries, insisted that Guix use the package name
g-golf when packaging his G-Golf project.

Guix currently uses the name guile-g-golf in accordance with its
not-written-down naming policy for pure Guile libraries, that should be
applied according to maintainers [1] and analogous to the written-down
policy for Python [2] and CommonLisp [3] and analogous to what its
semi-automatic package importers for other languages from CRAN, OPAM,
etc. do.

People suggested/discussed that David make a patch to just remove G-Golf
from Guix.

Gábor [5] and Maxim [6] proposed making g-golf an alias of guile-g-golf
(currently it is a deprecated alias)); Tobias [7] does not like but
would accept this compromise.  David does not respond to the
suggestions, though, and private mails do not appear as if David intends
to respond.

In private mails, David announced his intention to put G-Golf in an
external Guix channel.

But this is not consensus.  There is opposition to removing in [4].
Also I am myself a user of G-Golf for a tiny zenity-like Kodi launcher
in my Guix Home configuration and would like to keep it without some
third-party channel.

Further, lacking G-Golf in Guix would harm both Guix and G-Golf.  G-Golf
should get more users and Guix should ship desired packages.

G-Golf is really a nicer interface to GTK, because it is in Guile and
well-maintained and has examples that I currently package [7], even
though I still recommend to understand GTK’s documentation for C even
when programming Guile.

Nomad does not build due to incompatibility with current Webkit, but I
still have hope someone might revive it.

Closing without apply.

Regards,
Florian

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2025-02/msg00241.html
[2] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Python-Modules.html
[3] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Build-Systems.html#index-asdf_002dbuild_002dsystem_002fsource
[4] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2025-02/msg00321.html
[5] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2025-02/msg00320.html
[6] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2025-02/msg00296.html
[7] https://issues.guix.gnu.org/76246#32