Re: Two people try to get lilypond for 2.0.12, but hit a roadblock

[David Kastrup]

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> writes:

> Jan Nieuwenhuizen writes:
>
>>> In fact, that's the current block on further work making LilyPond
>>> Guile-2.0 compatible since no developer has gotten an unreleased tree to
>>> combine with LilyPond, and working on the integration without even being
>>> able to test is not viable.
>>
>> Okay, I'll look into that.  I think my lily patches should just make
>> that possible now.
>
> And indeed it is.  It puzzles me that todays developers do not seem to
> know how to build from source anymore when changes are required.

Shrug.  Most of those who tried to get the stuff running were not
developers.  And I've just run out of steam on Guile, what with Guile
developers always volunteering to help, demanding complete recipes and
ready-to-compile branches and then, when getting them, going dead.
About half a dozen times in a row.  Whenever I report some showstopper,
the turnaround time until a fix is created is 3 months.  In the
repository, mind you.  Not in a release.

And if I were to create a personally working compilation of Guilev2,
where would that leave the people working with Lilydev or other variants
relying on a standard environment?

So I'd have to start rolling my own Guilev2 packages and leave all
people with stock versions out in the cold.  Just because Guile
developers are dragging their feet as much as they can on anything to do
with LilyPond.

I can show you mails with Andy Wingo promising Richard Stallman to take
LilyPond as first priority, only to go dead and never even reply a
single time when everything is provided _again_.

And on the LilyPond side, it's been a long time since anybody but myself
did anything regarding Guilev2.  I cannot exactly blame Ian Hulin for
stopping to contribute (and I don't actually know whether he is still
alive).  I think he was the last one apart from me working on it.

> I tried to plug Schikkers-List a couple of years ago and provided
> scripts to build guile2, gwrap, guile-gnome2 and lilypond from source,
> and I didn't get any feedback (positive or negative) on that.

>From who did you expect to hear?  Guile developers/users or LilyPond
developers/users?

> Anyway, my grand plan here is to use Guix which provides a
> reproducible, dependable build environment that is transparent between
> sources and binaries and supported or externally added packages.

As far as I know, none of the current LilyPond developers runs Guix.
GUB does not run it, LilyDev does not run it either.  So this might
rather target Guile developers.  Who are not likely to spend a lot of
time with a system not actually used by LilyPond developers.  So I'm not
sure your grand plan will get a grand reception without you yourself
making major investments and time in a recasting of the LilyPond tool
chain and training of its users/developers.

Sorry to not exactly provide a positive outlook here.

All the best

David

-- 
David Kastrup