Hi Alexis, "Alexis (surryhill)" <[email protected]> writes:
> Thanks for raising this understandable concern. Nix uses its > gnulib package to build certain software, but does not use it to > build groff. As far as I understand it, groff distribution archives are > self-contained and include everything from gnulib that is needed to > build groff. Cool, thanks for clarifying that. Yes, the 'groff' tarballs should be self-contained, as far as I am aware. The files imported from 'gnulib-tool' are imported into the tarball generated by 'make dist'. You'd have to do something atypical for that not to be the case. > I failed to update gnulib in nixpkgs because dependent projects expect > different versions with different functionality, and gnulib AFAIK > does not offer stable/versioned releases that could be referenced. Since Gnulib is meant to be imported in source code form there isn't any releases or anything [1]. There are "stable" branches that don't get new modules, large changes, etc. [2], but they aren't really releases and are just to help maintainers who prefer not to import updates from Gnulib's master branch which is sometimes frequently updated. >> I ask because the package is pinned to a commit from 2024 [1]. > > Glad you asked, Collin. For my own personal snapshot building setup, > I regularly check groff's git submodule to ensure that my Nix-based > build uses the exact same version of gnulib that's pinned within groff > for exactly the reason you state: To avoid wasting people's time > on chasing down already fixed bugs, while identifying potential issues > with recent changes to groff and building it with Nix. > > Hopefully this alleviates your concern. Yes, thanks again for the clarification. Collin [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/gnulib.html#Gnulib-Basics-1 [2] https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/gnulib.html#Stable-Branches
