[Nix-dev] Re: [Nix-commits] SVN commit: nix - r26983 - nixpkgs/trunk/pkgs/applications/networking/mailreaders/notmuch

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Florian Friesdorf <flo at chaoflow.net> writes:

> On Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:15:45 +0200, ludo at gnu.org (Ludovic =?iso-8859-1?Q?Court=E8s?=) wrote:

[...]

>> Packages in Nixpkgs should use a published tarball, so users know what
>> version of the package they use, which allows them to provide useful bug
>> reports upstream, etc.
>
> I agree, but am involved upstream. However, I definitely should state in
> the package's long description what patches I applied and why.

Yes.

> Also, the two new keybindings is my personal preference, which I
> probably should not enforce on nixos users without a chance of these
> becoming included upstream.

Indeed.  :-)

>> If you really need the latest & greatest, what about adding a
>> ‘notmuchUnstable’ (or similar) derivation alongside the latest stable
>> release?
>
> For now I see:
>
> - notmuch (with fixes I think are necessary over the latest release)
> - notmuchChaoflow (containing my two keybindings and maybe more things
>   in the future)
> - notmuchUnstable (future, once the current fixes are included in a
>   release) 

Sounds good, yes.

> The current 0.5 I cannot recommend and therefore would not package, at
> least not as the default to be installed.

I see, but IMO what matters is what upstream releases, not what
packagers would recommend.

> If all notmuch* derivations are named notmuch, how do I control which
> one is installed in case of `nix-env -i notmuch`?

You could make all but the stable release have a low priority (see
‘lowPrio’ in all-packages.nix), so by default the stable release will be
installed.

Anyone wanting one of the other variants would use
‘nix-env -Ai notmuchUnstable’ or similar.

Thanks,
Ludo’.