> Guix also has importers for a variety of sources, like programming > language package managers, and even gnu: > > [...] > > So maybe it could be taught to build package definitions somehow from > (a subset of?) Debian packages?
That seems like an incredibly difficult task. Debian makes many assumptions about the way package will be installed. It configures and patches software to install its respective components under system directories like /usr/bin, /var, /etc. Guix makes very different assumptions, it would install a gcc binary under /gnu/store/<some_hash>-gcc-4.7.2/bin/gcc These 2 concepts are too different for such automatization to be practical. Actually, if it made sense, someone would have already done that before. The best we can do here is try to reuse single files from Debian packages (e.g. machine-readable copyright files, security&stability patches, etc.). Some manual work should still be required for each package, though. Language-specific build tools, on the other hand, typically don't make such assumptions about installation and are less complex in general. This is what makes automatization possible in that case. What would make sense is developing more Guix importers, including one for Java/Maven if there isn't such yet. Then, however, we get back to the problem of being way behind Debian in terms of packaging progress. Honestly, I would be quite happy to see Guix as an option here. It has some important qualities Debian doesn't have: - can be used without root access - provides a somewhat transparent way of building packages from source - could possibly be ported to other platforms (I'd be happy to see it run under (or as a replacement of) Cygwin; we would then have a very good way of reaching Losedowns useds with parts of libre software) Unfortunately, currently it is simply more practical to rely on Debian (and Trisquel which indirectly downstreams it)
pgpJthoCuhnXP.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
_______________________________________________ Replicant mailing list Replicant@osuosl.org https://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/replicant
