-*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-

#+TITLE: Tentative GNU Guix Road Map

Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>

  Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
  are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
  notice and this notice are preserved.

The goals of the GNU Guix project are two-fold:

  - to build a purely functional package manager, based on Nix and
    Guile;

  - to use it to build a practical 100% free software distribution of
    GNU/Linux and possibly other GNU variants, with a focus on the
    promotion and tight integration of GNU components–the GNU system.

Since its inception, the project has gone a long way towards that goal.  Below
is a list of items we want for version "1.0" of the Guix System Distribution.
There will be a few 0.x releases by then to give the new features more
exposure and testing.

You're welcome to discuss this road map on guix-devel@gnu.org or #guix on
the Libera Chat IRC network!

* Features scheduled for 1.0

  - larger & more robust build farm
    + we need a powerful, dedicated front-end
    + armhf-linux build machine
    + leave Hydra in favor of 'guix publish' + custom code?
  - more OS features
    + LVM support
    + encrypted root
    + configurable name service switch
    + whole-system unit tests, using VMs
  - more service definitions
    + mcron, postfix(?), wicd(?), etc.
  - better 'guix system'
    + 'reconfigure' should be able to restart non-essential services
    + support for '--list-generations' and '--delete-generations'
  - better 'guix pull'
    + using Git to fetch the source instead of re-downloading everything
    + build more quickly
    + install new .mo files and new manual
    + authentication of the Guix source: use signed commits?
  - simplified, purely declarative service list in 'operating-system'
    + it should be possible to inspect the service instance declarations and
      settings
  - GUIs
    + integrate guix-web?
    + guile-ncurses installer?
  - 'guix publish'?

* Features for later

  - complete GNU/Hurd port
  - use content-based addressing when downloading substitutes to reduce
    bandwidth requirements
    + design nar v2 format where file contents are replaced by their hashes
    + leverage /gnu/store/.links
  - binary origin tracking
    + keep signatures in sqlite.db
    + preserve signatures upon import/export
  - peer-to-peer distribution of updates (GNUnet?)
  - more deterministic builds
    + identify & fix sources of non-determinism in builds
    + strengthen guix-daemon containers to further increase reproducibility
    + trusting-trust: bootstrap with different tool chains
    + fixed-point: re-bootstrap until fixed point is reached
    + distributed validation: compare contents of store items with others
      * resist a hydra.gnu.org compromise
  - reproducible containers: mix of 'guix environment' and 'guix system vm'
  - execute code with least privilege
    + build containers like guix-daemon does
    + provide a Plash-like interface in Bash
  - daemon rewritten in Guile
  - more shepherd integration
    + monitor network interfaces and start/stop events based on that
    + include a DHCP client written in Scheme
file): Renamed from %ed25519bis-secret-key-file.
* tests/keys/ed25519-3.key: New file.
* tests/keys/ed25519-3.sec: New file.

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Othacehe &lt;othacehe@gnu.org&gt;
</span></span></td><td>Attila Lendvai</td></tr>
<tr><td><span title='2020-09-15 14:40:20 +0200'>2020-09-15</span></td><td><a href='/guix/commit/tests/guix-authenticate.sh?id=b911d6547444b5f8d17b224bafa5ee1b5aafaff5'>authenticate: Encode strings as ISO-8859-1.</a><span class='msg-avail'>...<span class='msg-tooltip'>Fixes &lt;https://bugs.gnu.org/43421&gt;.

* guix/scripts/authenticate.scm (read-command): Decode strings as
ISO-8859-1, not UTF-8.
(guix-authenticate)[send-reply]: Encode strings as ISO-8859-1, not
UTF-8.
* tests/guix-authenticate.sh: Add test.
</span></span></td><td>Ludovic Courtès</td></tr>
<tr><td><span title='2020-09-14 15:42:55 +0200'>2020-09-14</span></td><td><a href='/guix/commit/tests/guix-authenticate.sh?id=64cf660f872fb7aaf0d2b463e45b4c756297f743'>daemon: Spawn 'guix authenticate' once for all.</a><span class='msg-avail'>...<span class='msg-tooltip'>Previously, we'd spawn 'guix authenticate' once for each item that has
to be signed (when exporting) or authenticated (when importing).  Now,
we spawn it once for all and then follow a request/reply protocol.  This
reduces the wall-clock time of:

  guix archive --export -r $(guix build coreutils -d)

from 30s to 2s.

* guix/scripts/authenticate.scm (sign-with-key): Return the signature
instead of displaying it.  Raise a &amp;formatted-message instead of calling
'leave'.
(validate-signature): Likewise.
(read-command): New procedure.
(define-enumerate-type, reply-code): New macros.
(guix-authenticate)[send-reply]: New procedure.
Change to read commands from current-input-port.
* nix/libstore/local-store.cc (runAuthenticationProgram): Remove.
(authenticationAgent, readInteger, readAuthenticateReply): New
functions.
(signHash, verifySignature): Rewrite in terms of the agent.
* tests/store.scm ("import not signed"): Remove 'pk' call.
("import signed by unauthorized key"): Check the error message of C.
* tests/guix-authenticate.sh: Rewrite using the new protocol.

fixlet
</span></span></td><td>Ludovic Courtès</td></tr>
<tr><td><span title='2020-09-11 17:53:58 +0200'>2020-09-11</span></td><td><a href='/guix/commit/tests/guix-authenticate.sh?id=6dd8ffc57420ee2f6f19e79e41028e78fe9e6a7e'>daemon: Simplify interface with 'guix authenticate'.</a><span class='msg-avail'>...<span class='msg-tooltip'>There's no reason at this point to mimic the calling convention of the
'openssl' command.

* nix/libstore/local-store.cc (LocalStore::exportPath): Add only "sign"
and HASH to ARGS.  Remove 'tmpDir' and 'hashFile'.
(LocalStore::importPath): Add only "verify" and SIGNATURE to
* guix/scripts/authenticate.scm (guix-authenticate): Adjust
accordingly; remove the OpenSSL-style clauses.
(read-hash-data): Remove.
(sign-with-key): Replace 'port' with 'sha256' and adjust accordingly.
(validate-signature): Export SIGNATURE to be a canonical sexp.
* tests/guix-authenticate.sh: Adjust tests accordingly.
</span></span></td><td>Ludovic Courtès</td></tr>