Re: Linux-libre source code will be taken offline

[Mark H Weaver]

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 01:32:16PM -0700, Jason Self wrote:
>> The scripts are not being removed and my understanding is that Guix
>> only uses the scripts anyway.
>
> Okay, that's great. We do use the scripts.

Unfortunately, the older deblobbing scripts have now been removed from
the HTTPS URLs that our linux-libre build recipes fetched them from, so
I guess there will now be difficulties for users trying to reproduce any
Guix system more than about a month old.

If we wish to preserve Guix users' ability to reproduce older systems,
we will need an 'origin' to fetch the Linux-libre deblob scripts from
that has a policy of retaining older releases, unchanged and at a fixed
location.  Apparently the HTTPS URLs at <https://linux-libre.fsfla.org>
that we currently use are not suitable for that purpose.

The Linux-libre git repository *might* be suitable, but I haven't yet
seen a commitment from the Linux-libre project that they will retain the
tags for older flawed deblobbing scripts in their repository going
forward.  Without tags protecting them, I guess the commits could be
deleted by 'git-gc' even if we referenced them directly by their commit
hashes.

Perhaps the SWH fallback is the answer we need, if they are archiving
the Linux-libre git repository.  Does anyone know if they are?

Thoughts?

     Thanks,
       Mark

-------------------- Start of forwarded message --------------------
From: Alexandre Oliva <lxoliva@fsfla.org>
To: linux-libre@fsfla.org, info-gnu@gnu.org
Subject: GNU Linux-libre's nonfree releases removed
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2021 14:08:01 -0300

https://linux-libre.fsfla.org/#retired-2021-09-27
2021-09-27 - Removing obsolete releases and repositories

We celebrate the 38th anniversary of the GNU Project and of the Free
Software movement by removing past releases found to contain nonfree
software.  Their cleaning-up scripts remain available from the git
repository, and from releases/old/gen6.

We're also removing long-obsolete repositories that still contained
builds of those and of even earlier releases.  Instead of freed-ebian
and planet, we recommend Freesh. Instead of rt, we recommend LibeRTy.  A
freeloong replacement might be added to Freesh if there's enough demand.

Freed-ora repositories for recent Fedora releases remain available, but
we're still looking for new maintainers for Freed-ora.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker                https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
   Free Software Activist                       GNU Toolchain Engineer
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>

-- 
If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like
to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package,
see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.
-------------------- End of forwarded message --------------------

-- 
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.