Hi Ludo,

On Sat, 08 Nov 2025 at 22:50, Ludovic Courtès <[email protected]> wrote:

> To make sure we’re all on the same page, there’s a deprecation policy
> that defines how we handle these things; the recently-added
> ‘define-deprecated-package’ macro that should help third-party channel
> maintainers learn about upcoming deprecations:
>
>   https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Deprecation-Policy.html

My message was assuming we follow such policy. :-)

Quoting the “Deprecation Policy“:

        There is no formal deprecation mechanism for this case, unless a
        replacement exists, in which case the define-deprecated-package
        macro mentioned above can be used.

The only mean to know what will be removed is to… browse Issues and Pull
Requests, as explained by the Note.

        Note: Learn about pending package removals by checking issues
        and pull requests with the ‘deprecation’ label.

Today, that’s not affordable!  Or as a member of guix-science
maintainers, do you volunteer for this task? :-p

The main issue of third-party channel when removing is about the removal
of the symbol: It breaks the third-party channel itself!

As I wrote [1]:

        For now, the propagation of package removals to third-party channels is
        far to be polished.  People are working on it but we are not ready yet.

and for example, see https://codeberg.org/guix-science/guix-science/issues/255
Well, you know better than me. :-)

Now, if ’define-deprecated-package’ is introduced to master at the
beginning of the one month grace period – or some days after opening an
Issue or a PR announcing the removal – this would help third-party
channel to easily be in touch.  It would avoid to browse the pending
package removal list then cross-check the impact on the third-party
channel: Third-party channel CI would list the deprecation warnings.

Maybe it’s what you’re suggesting with:

                                                 the recently-added
        ‘define-deprecated-package’ macro that should help third-party channel
        maintainers learn about upcoming deprecations:


All that to say, all the janitor work done these days is great!  And
pushing on Friday or Saturday is better than not pushing at all. :-)

I’m on this page.

Somehow, I’m asking a kind of favor or friendliness about the very
specific case of “package removal”; where the process isn’t fully
formalized (yet?), BTW or IIUC.

Cheers,
simon

1: Avoid to push package removal on Friday?
Simon Tournier <[email protected]>
Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:17:47 +0100
id:[email protected]
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2025-11
https://yhetil.org/guix/[email protected]

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