Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 5/5] DRAFT gnu: julia: Update to 1.6.1.

From: Maxime Devos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2021 13:43:23 +0200

Jean-Baptiste Volatier schreef op zo 04-07-2021 om 07:17 [+0000]:
> On Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 9:54 PM, Maxime Devos <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > What are the reasons for adding "nss-certs" here?
> 
> nss-certs is added to address this: https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/40185
> Quoting Sacha0 from github:
> 
> > IIRC generate_precompile builds a mock registry to avoid going to network, but
> > the cert issue that nico202 mentioned breaks that mock setup, and downstream
> > operations subsequently try to go to network.
> 
> It is only needed to build the julia package.
> Cheers,
> JB.

I see. The following still applies though:

‘Also, it should be possible to update the certificate bundle
(e.g. if it turns out some root was or became evil or something,
or was compromised) quickly, without going through a world rebuild.
So dependencies on "nss-certs" should be avoided.’

So perhaps you could define a "nss-certs-for-tests" variable
(currently just pointing to nss-certs), and add "nss-certs-for-tests" to
#:disallowed-references to prevent "nss-certs-for-tests" being used at
run-time?

I don't quite see _why_ Julia needs certificates at build time though ...
Also, I wonder if this causes reproducibility issues --- if we try to rebuild
julia after, say, 50 years, e.g. by using "guix time-machine", wouldn't the
certificates become invalid, and would therefore the build of Julia fail?

Greetings,
Maxime.