On Sun, 24 May 2020, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
[…]
Another improvement we could make here is improving the message about
Software Heritage in guix lint. Most of the other messages it emits
are things that the author of a package should consider improving. If
the Software Heritage message is less actionable, let's make that
clearer so that people don't think there is a problem with their
package definition.
What message would you suggest?
How about expanding section 7.7 "Invoking Guix Lint" in the manual to
include a paragraph of advice in the explanation for each checker. For
example, the advice could be could be "change the source to use git-fetch"
for "source-unstable-tarball", "exercise judgment on the long-term
availability of software sources. We think that code hosted on the GNU ftp
servers will be around for a long time, but code on people's personal
websites may not be. The greater the risk of the software disappearing,
the more important is is to use git-fetch in sources so we can trigger
archiving at Software Heritage" for "archival", and "double check whether
these inputs really should be native [link to appropriate section of the
manual]. If they really need to be, leave a comment in the code briefly
explaining why to help future contributors" for "inputs-should-be-native".
Obviously, those aren't fit to be included in the manual as is, but
hopefully they give a good idea of what I was thinking. guix lint could
remind people to check the manual for advice when it detects lint.
That said, I am open to other options, including that this isn't a problem
that we need to solve.
Best,
Jack