Subject: bug#22629: “Stable” branch

From: Konrad Hinsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 16:46:43 +0200

Hi Ludo and Alex,

[email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> These are all things that very rarely, if ever, changed over the last 5
> years.  I expect the change rate to remain the same.  :-)

That's reassuring!

> You seem to be arguing of a “stable” branch in the sense that the Guix
> tools (the CLI in particular) wouldn’t change much, is that correct?
>
> I’m asking because there are several ways to define “stable.”  Initially
> I thought what you had in mind was like the “stable” branch in Debian,
> meaning that packages only get security updates.  To me that’s a
> different thing.

What I have in mind is whatever it takes to build a stable software
system. That includes stable ingredients (packages) but also stable
glue, meaning the package definitions and the build system that produces
the binaries from them.  Stability of the Guix CLI is much less relevant
from my point of view.

Alex Sassmannshausen <[email-masked]> writes:

> I don't know if this is what Konrad desires, but from my perspective, a
> desirable part of the definition of stable would be a that the build
> farms have produced a set of binaries/substitutes for a given Guix
> revision that is "good enough".

That's another very practically relevant notion of stability. Mine goes
beyond that though. For example, I'd require all packages to build and
pass tests at all times.

Konrad.