Hi Leo,
On Sun, Feb 02 2025, Leo Famulari wrote:
> please try to participate in the conversation productively
Okay, sorry about the sarcasm, although sometimes I think that's exactly
what a community needs. I meant to be a mirror.
In my view, Guix is unable to solve its problems, and people continually
look elsewhere for causes.
Sometimes it's a lack of "patch reviewers." At other times, Guix has to
leave GNU or the FSF because they are evil. Now Codeberg is being
offered to make everything better.
paul, please have no hard feelings toward me. You represent the
majority. I'm the odd one out (and will perhaps be disciplined for it).
I am not even a Guix contributor. I only used your comment when it came
in and would have spoken up soon anyway.
There is no other way to close bugs than to actually work on them.
I know because I co-maintained Lintian in Debian for five years. I
closed hundreds of bugs. In Debbugs.
Since paul brought up Debian, they also struggle with the attractive
workflow offered by code forges, although I haven't kept up-to-date.
For many years now, Debian has had a self-hosted Gitlab instance called
Salsa. I used it extensively and did not like it, for reason one below,
but acceptance in Debian is growing. Salsa was a hard-fought compromise
because:
1. Issues on code forges are hard to audit years later. Usually, I
can't even locate what I'm looking for.
2. Forges like Codeberg can disappear like Freenode or sell
themselves to Microshaft like Gitflub.
[I hope funny alterations of protected brand names are still welcome.]
In order to solve its problems, Guix needs to:
A. Expand Git access to several hundred people.
B. Stratify authorizations, perhaps based on an honor system,
according to people's area of expertise. It needs focus on
solving user problems and be more granular than teams instead of
merely aligning with upstream tools or packages.
C. Develop a quality standard for packages higher than "it builds."
Many packaging errors show only at runtime, especially in Guix.
D. Make user concerns a top priority. (Hi, Gottfried!)
In short, I don't think Guix can be like Debian without having the same
kind of people power, some sort of specialization, improved quality
control, and an unwavering focus on usability.
Codeberg does none of that, except maybe help with CI like Chris wrote.
I offer this email hoping that it will alleviate Leo's (and I'm sure
other people's) feeling of offense. My brief, cynical message was
acceptable for the discussion (or so I thought) but this longer message
clearly does not belong into the Codeberg thread. Sorry, Ludo', for
hijacking.
Please change the subject when responding.
Kind regards
Felix
P.S. I contributed my Codeberg mirror to the Guix group on Codeberg and
do not oppose Ludo's suggestion to move the repository.
P.P.S. I would take the opportunity, as first suggested by Lily, and
rename the master branch to the deadpan 'history'.
