Re: A registry for distributed sources and binaries

[Pjotr Prins]

On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 08:28:30AM +0200, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote:
> > if we support a decentralized system of externally-managed 
> > repositories.
> 
> No. Break them.
> 
> If you're running an external Guix repository and don't bother to follow
> the main development branch(es) with some attention, your users deserve
> to get regular breakage warnings as a subtle hint that maybe they
> shouldn't be trusting you with their software.

Exactly. 

I am thinking plugins themselves can be part of the Guix package tree
and come with tests. That way we can keep an eye on 'infrastructure'
code.

Pulling in packages from elsewhere - it is up to the registries to
test things and maintain compatibility.

> There seem to be two different meanings of ‘support’ at play here:
>    - adding decentralised repository support to Guix so it can at least
>      be done in a clean user-friendly way, which I think is excellent
> vs.
>    - promising some kind of API stability to those repositories, which
>      I think is terrible.

Yeah. I am not looking for that. I think it is good to break stuff for
future considerations. That is one advantage FOSS has. The code is out
in the open...

I also agree that we should encourage freedom and exploration.

Pj.
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