Re: Concerns/questions around Software Heritage Archive

[Ryan Prior]

On Saturday, March 16th, 2024 at 10:52 AM, Ian Eure <ian@retrospec.tv> wrote:

> 
> 
> Hi Guixy people,
> [...]
> I was also distressed to see how poorly they treated a developer
> who wished to update their name:
> https://cohost.org/arborelia/post/4968198-the-software-heritag
> https://cohost.org/arborelia/post/5052044-the-software-heritag

I read these posts with interest. It is worth noting that the complained-about 
organization, Inria, supports Guix as well & has close historical ties to the 
project (although it is does not have decision-making power here AFAIK.) It is 
a shame that Inria have treated this matter with such apparent disregard.

I have heard folks in the Guix maintenance sphere claim that we never rewrite 
git history in Guix, as a matter of policy. I believe we should revisit that 
policy (is it actually written anywhere?) with an eye towards possible 
exceptions, and develop a mechanism for securely maintaining continuity of Guix 
installations after history has been rewritten so that we maintain this as a 
technical possibility in the future, even if we should choose to use it 
sparingly.

Ryan