[bug#78332,1/1] 005-regular-releases: Initial draft of GCD005 'Regular and efficient releases'.

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Hi all,

It's been ~2.5 years since the last Guix release, which led me to think we should do another one! Initially, I was just going to see if anyone wanted to create a release project. But, before I knew it I was writing a GCD! ...

Below you'll find a proposal for moving to a regular release cycle.

Thanks to Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès and Efraim Flashner for their initial comments and insights. They've agreed to sponsor it - which means they agree with the general direction (but not necessarily with all aspects), and will help to 'garden' the discussion to move us towards a consensus on whether it's a good proposal.

This is a **draft** submission so I look forward to your consideration of it, thoughts and comments.

Thanks,

Steve / Futurile
title: Regular and efficient releases
id: 005
status: draft
discussion: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/78332
authors: Steve George
sponsors: Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès, Efraim Flashner
date: <date when the discussion period starts>
SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-or-later
---

# Summary

Guix doesn't have regular release cycle which has led to infrequent new
releases. Sporadic releases are detrimental for our users, contributors and
the project.  This GCD proposes we implement an annual release cadence and
simplify the release process to make releases easier.

The project currently releases new versions of Guix on an ad hoc frequency.
The 1.4.0 release happened in December 2022 [^1], which is almost 2.5 years
ago, at the time of writing.

The weaknesses in this release strategy are:

1. No clarity on when the next Guix release is.
2. Releases are complex and toil for developers.
3. Rolling updates aren't suitable for all users.

This GCD proposes the following combined solution:

1. Regular releases: switch to a time-based release of Guix every year.
2. Efficient releases: use *package sets* and *supported architectures* to
reduce the scope of work required to create a Guix release.

The benefits will be:

1. New installations of Guix will be better because installation media and
   manuals will be up to date, and the initial 'guix pull' will be faster.
2. Package installation will improve for all users.  Packages will be ungrafted
   during each release cycle.
3. Package quality will improve for all users, because regular releases will
   provide a cadence for focusing on our quality.
4. A regular cadence for promoting the project to potential users.  Helping us
   to inform more people about the benefits of using GNU Guix!
5. A regular release cycle is a rallying point for our contributors giving them a
   consistent calendar of when to focus on releases versus other hacking.

Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
change that would be a big improvement for our users.


# Motivation

Releases are important for any Free Software project because they update the
user experience and are a focal point for excitement [^3].  Regular releases
help us to improve the quality of our software by bringing focus, and
exercising regular usage scenarios (e.g. testing the installer).

The majority of distributions follow time-based releases, six months is a
common cycle time.  For further comparison see the research on the
[release strategies of distributions] (https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt)
. A summary is:

- NixOS: releases every six months (May/November), both rolling release and
slower stable branch.
- OpenSUSE: rolling release, slow-roll release and fixed releases.
- Ubuntu: every six months, with 9 months maintenance. LTS releases every
2 years.
- Debian: Every 2 years (not time fixed), with about six months of package
updates freeze before the release while bugs are ironed out.

As a rolling release Guix immediately provides the latest improvements to
users.  Consequently, it could be argued that releases are unnecessary.
However, they provide a focal point for the project to undertake additional
testing and stabilisation across the repository.  They also ensure we update
installation media, documentation, themes and web site.

A specific issue caused by irregular releases is that new users/installs face a
significant first "guix pull". This provides a poor initial user experience,
and in some cases may even deter users [^4]. Additionally, it requires the
project to keep old substitutes on our servers.

Regular releases are also good for casual users because they provide an
opportunity for us to promote new features and improvements.  For prospective
users promotional activity about the release means they are more likely to hear
about capabilities that will attract them to experiment with Guix.

Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.

Since Guix is used [extensively as a desktop] (https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/)
it would make sense to align with these upstream releases.  However, given that
Guix is a volunteer project that doesn't have the practise of releasing it's
unrealistic to move to two releases a year. Something along these lines could
be a future goal [^5].

This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.

To move onto this cycle the first release would be a little later: aiming for
the **November of 2025**, with a short cycle to release in May 2026.


## Package Sets

There are currently over 30,000 packages in the archive, it's unrealistic for
all packages to receive the same amount of QA effort for a release.

Many other distributions focus attention on the critical parts of their
repository by identifying those packages that are required for a particular
user-case.  For example, Arch Linux limits their efforts to a specific
repository (called "main").  Ubuntu identifies various seeds for specific
use-cases which determines their maintained packages; other packages outside
these sets do not receive security updates.

Guix is both a package manager that can be hosted on other Linux distributions,
and a Linux distribution.  Limiting the range of packages that receive attention
is consequently more complicated. Guix already has manifests to track which
packages are used by [Guix System's installer](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm)
, so this proposal extends that concept.

For this proposal Guix would identify key package sets which would receive the
most attention for QA'ing a release.

The package sets would be:

* minimal: packages required to boot and install a minimal Guix or Guix System
install.  This would include the guix daemon, kernels, boot loaders,
file-systems and minimal utilities.
* standard: packages that create a core installation for all other uses.
* desktop: provides the packages necessary for a desktop.  This would include
things like X11/Wayland, desktop environments, key applications and themes.
* server: provides packages and services for a server.  This would include
standard server packages and services.
* hosted: provides packages and services which are necessary in hosted usage.

Guix would still make all packages and services part of a release (the entire
archive), but only those in the `package sets` could block a release due to a
significant bug.  The goal would be for this to be as small a set of packages
as reasonably possible.  It would mean that developers could focus on the
critical packages and services during a release.  As an example, this would
mean that a major issue in the Linux kernel could block a release, but not an
issue in a game.


## Platforms and Architecture tiers

Guix is built and maintained on multiple different architectures, and two
kernels (Linux, GNU Hurd).  As the goal of the project is to maximise user
freedom this variety is significant and is a key motivator for developers.

However, with limited resources (developer and CI) we want to make it as
efficient as possible to create a release.  The more toil involved in a release
the less likely developers are to work on it.

The [2025 Guix User Survey](https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-2/)
showed that 98% of users were on x86_64 and 19% on AArch64.  Consequently, the
proposal is the following tiers:

- Primary architectures:
  - Architectures: x86_64, AArch64
  - Kernel: Linux
  - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
    specific must work to be included in the archive.
  - Package status: package updates should build for this architecture.  If a
    package update is broken it must not be pushed to users (e.g. master).
  - Security: all packages that are maintained upstream receive updates

- Alternative architectures
  - Architectures: all others
  - Kernel: Linux, Hurd
  - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
    specific may build
  - Package status: package updates should work for this architecture.
    Updates that do not build for this architecure, but do build for a primary
    architecture may be pushed to users.
  - Security: no commitment to providing security updates for this architecture.

Packages or services that do not build for the Primary architectures as part of
a release would be removed from the archive using Guix's deprecation policy.


## Release artifacts

Using the primary architecture tier and the package sets would involve creating
the following release artifacts:

- GNU Guix System ISO image
- GNU Guix System QCOW2 image
- GNU Guix installer

Again in an effort to reduce developer toil, additional release artifacts could
be created but would not be part of the formal release testing and errors would
not block a release.


## Release team and project

A regular release cycle should galvanise all Guix developers to work on our
releases.  But, to ensure there are sufficient people involved a call will be
put out to create a specific release team for each release project.  We would
expect the final release team to be around four-six members. The release team
will work together to fix issues and test the various release artifacts. The
expectation is that the release projects will be as short as possible, around
a 12 week commitment with each team member having a few hours a week to take
part.

To manage the release it's proposed that each release will have a Release Manager
role. The role of the Release Manager is to: 

- co-ordinate the release project
- communicate with the release team and wider developers status and blockers
- arbitrate changes to release blocking bugs, package sets and release
  artifacts
- influence and assist teams to resolve problems
- define the release artifacts and create them
- encourage and excite **everyone to create and test the release**

The Release Management role is likely to require the most effort, so it will
be rotated and consist of two people from the release team.  For each release
there would be a primary person and a secondary person in the role.  The
primary person is new to the role.  The secondary person has previously done it
and is mentoring the new person.  The impact of this is that each new release
manager is agreeing to take responsibility during two release cycles.
This system is modelled on the [Nix release management](https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt/nix-release-mgmt.md)
approach.

One of the release team will take on the role of Release Advocate [^6].  They
will take responsibility for preparing the release announcement and 
coordinating the creation of content to promote the new release (e.g. web site)
This role can be done by any member of the Guix community who has sufficient
interest.

The final release team is:

- a new Release Manager
- a returning Release Manager
- up to 4 other members, one of whom acts as the Release Advocate

The Release Managers of each release will create and communicate a release
project plan setting out the stages and dates for each stage.  To try and
galvanise the Guix development team to focus on the release it's envisioned
that a release project will be about 12 weeks. See Appendix 1: Release Project
Time-line for an example.

In order to improve knowledge transfer and reduce the toil of doing releases
the Release Managers for a release will document the release process.  There is
inspiration for this in [NixOS's release wiki](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Home.html)
and we already have detailed [release documentation](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
.


# Cost of Reverting

If regular releases were not successful then the project would switch back to
irregular releases.  There would be no impact for exiting users as they will
be tracking the rolling release's master branch.

If the project is able to successfully undertake regular releases then over
time it may be possible to undertake full releases every six months or some
other release cadence.


# Drawbacks and open issues

There's no particular drawback to attempting regular release.  It should be
noted that the project is entirely dependent on volunteers so it may be that
contributors don't have enough time available to achieve regular releases.  If
that's the case we would revert back to irregular releases.

There are various improvements that could be made to this process over time,
but no known issues.


# Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line

To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.

The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)

| Week of Project | Event |
| --- | --- |
| -5 | Nominate a release team |
| -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
| 01 | Release project start |
| 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
| 05 | Package set finalisation |
| 06 | Initial testing |
| 08 | Updates freeze |
| 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
| 08 | Ungraft master branch |
| 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
| 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
| 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
| 10 | Release candidate |
| 12 | Final release |
| 13 | Staging merged to master |
| 14 | Release retrospective |
| 15+| Relax - it's done! |

### 1. Nominate a release team
Nominate a release team with two Release Managers (1 is the previous RM), and
up to 4 other people who will work on the release. Put out a call for a Release
Advocate who can be anyone in the Guix community who's willing.

### 2. Notify teams of upcoming release
Make sure all teams are aware of the upcoming release.  This gives them 4 weeks
to undertake any large transitions or major changes.

### 3. Release project start
Start the project with weekly updates to guix-dev and regular meetings of the
release team.  Encourage participation in testing and identifying bugs from
the community.

### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
(e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.

Debian defines a transition as one where a change in one package causes changes
in another, the most common being a library.  This isn't suitable for Guix since
any change in an input causes a change in another package.  Nonetheless, any
change that alters a significant number of packages should be carefully
considered and updates that cause other packages to break should be rejected.

No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be altered.

### 5. Package set finalisation
Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.

### 6. Initial testing
An initial testing sprint to look at packages, services, install media and
upgrade testing. This should identify:

* packages or services that may need to be removed because they fail on a
  primary architecture
* packages and services in the package sets install and can be used
* installation artifacts can be created and used
* example system definitions can be used
* system upgrades

A build failure of a package or service will result in it being identified for
removal.  A build failure of a package or service that's in a package set will
be marked as a blocker for the release.

### 7. Updates freeze
Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.

### 8. Breaking changes to staging
To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
branch slows down from this week.

This concept comes from the Nix project where they flow big changes into a
staging branch while they do release stabilisation to prevent big flows of
breaking changes into master which broke one of their releases [^7].

Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
minor package upgrades.

### 9. Ungraft master branch
Guix master is ungrafted to minimise the difference with users of the release
initial 'guix pull' experience.

### 10. Bugs and documentation focus
The master branch should be quiet at this point as everyone should focus on
testing and resolving any bugs.  New documentation can also be done.

### 11. Branch and tag release branch
The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.

* master branch: security only.
* release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.

Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.

### 12. Testing and Hard Freeze
RC bugs and issues should be solved for the release branch.

Only changes that will fix a non-building package, or a bug in a package are
allowed.  Ideally avoid new upstream versions, but it's acceptable to use a new
minor upstream version to solve a bug.

Any non-building packages are removed.

### 13. Release candidate
Release artifacts are created for the release candidate.  There's a final 2
weeks of testing with these artifacts.  If there are no release blocking bugs
discovered then the releas uses these artifacts.  If bugs are found/fixed then
release artifacts are regenerated as needed.

### 14. Final release
Final release is announced and new release artifacts are published.

### 15. Staging merged to master
If there were any breaking changes placed onto the `staging` branch then these
can be merged into the `master` branch at this point.  The master branch then
continues as normal.

### 16. Release retrospective
A retrospective is undertaken by the release team to understand how the release
process can be improved to make it more reliable for users and easier/efficient
for developers.

### 17. Relax!
The release has been cut, everyone is now excited, and hopefully all is well.
Take some time off from release work!  There's some time built-in here to
relax and get back to other hacking before it's time to start again with the
next release.

---

[^1]: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2022/gnu-guix-1.4.0-released/

[^2]: Examples of distributions that have cadences for different users and screnarios
      are Nix's stable branch, OpenSUSE's SlowRoll branch and Ubuntu's LTS
      (Long Term Support) releases.

[^3]: the aspect of creating news and excitement for casual users is well-known
      in the FOSS community. An example from 
      [GNOME's earlier days](https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-June/msg00041.html).

[^4]: GuixDays 2025 release discussion brought up examples of Guix not being
      used to teach users because the initial pull was so slow that the
      teaching session would have completed before 'guix pull' would finish.
      We know guix pull being slow was identified by users as a challenge.

[^5]: OpenSuse has a [SlowRoll branch](https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Slowroll)
      where they release a smaller set of package updates on a monthly basis.
      This is an interesting innovation as it allows users to still benefit from
      a rolling release but at a slower rate of change (fewer regressions).
      They are also not dropping too far behind the rolling release, so there's
      not as much maintenance for OpenSUSE developers dealing with an out of
      date release branch and having to backport software.

[^6]: Nix has the concept of a [Release Editor](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Release-Editors.html)
      who is responsible for improving the legibility of the release notes.  Our
      version extends the idea to make sure other artifacts and activities that
      promote the release happen.

[^7]: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0085-nixos-release-stablization.md
  

Steve George <steve@futurile.net> writes:

> +
> +### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> +To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> +sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master

I think we may need to change the name. We used the name staging before
switching to the team-based process. If we reuse this name, it may cause
confusion for later users when searching for information.
  

On  9 May, Z572 wrote:
> Steve George <steve@futurile.net> writes:
> 
> > +
> > +### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> > +To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> > +sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> 
> I think we may need to change the name. We used the name staging before
> switching to the team-based process. If we reuse this name, it may cause
> confusion for later users when searching for information.
> 

No problem, is there something you would favour?

If not, what about `next-master` to indicate that it's the next master? If we think that's too generic we could give it a time-based date `202509-next-master` - meaning it will be merged back in during September 2025.
  

Hi Steve,

thanks for this. I have a few notes left in the text, but generally I
like this.

I think the proposal is missing the version numbering that will be used,
like, let's say the releases are x.y.z, is y increased? Or should the
numbering going to be switched to something like yyyy.mm?

Also, should the GCD document what happens if something goes horribly
wrong after the release is made, ie. a new minor release created to
mitigate the issue?

Steve George <steve@futurile.net> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> It's been ~2.5 years since the last Guix release, which led me to think we should do another one! Initially, I was just going to see if anyone wanted to create a release project. But, before I knew it I was writing a GCD! ...
>
> Below you'll find a proposal for moving to a regular release cycle.
>
> Thanks to Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès and Efraim Flashner for their initial comments and insights. They've agreed to sponsor it - which means they agree with the general direction (but not necessarily with all aspects), and will help to 'garden' the discussion to move us towards a consensus on whether it's a good proposal.
>
> This is a **draft** submission so I look forward to your consideration of it, thoughts and comments.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve / Futurile
> title: Regular and efficient releases
> id: 005
> status: draft
> discussion: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/78332
> authors: Steve George
> sponsors: Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès, Efraim Flashner
> date: <date when the discussion period starts>
> SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-or-later
> ---
>
> # Summary
>
> Guix doesn't have regular release cycle which has led to infrequent new
> releases. Sporadic releases are detrimental for our users, contributors and
> the project.  This GCD proposes we implement an annual release cadence and
> simplify the release process to make releases easier.
>
> The project currently releases new versions of Guix on an ad hoc frequency.
> The 1.4.0 release happened in December 2022 [^1], which is almost 2.5 years
> ago, at the time of writing.
>
> The weaknesses in this release strategy are:
>
> 1. No clarity on when the next Guix release is.
> 2. Releases are complex and toil for developers.
> 3. Rolling updates aren't suitable for all users.
>
> This GCD proposes the following combined solution:
>
> 1. Regular releases: switch to a time-based release of Guix every year.
> 2. Efficient releases: use *package sets* and *supported architectures* to
> reduce the scope of work required to create a Guix release.
>
> The benefits will be:
>
> 1. New installations of Guix will be better because installation media and
>    manuals will be up to date, and the initial 'guix pull' will be faster.

The initial pull won't be faster, the pull is so slow because there is
no checkout and no commits checked for auth, not because the iso is so
old. No matter the age of iso, the full clone has to be made and authenticated.
If there was a checkout in the cache, it would be faster, the more up to
date it is, the faster the pull is. Additionally what would greatly
improve the experience is if this checkout has been copied to the
installed system.
But that's not related to the releases themselves, but to how the iso is made.

> 2. Package installation will improve for all users.  Packages will be ungrafted
>    during each release cycle.
> 3. Package quality will improve for all users, because regular releases will
>    provide a cadence for focusing on our quality.
> 4. A regular cadence for promoting the project to potential users.  Helping us
>    to inform more people about the benefits of using GNU Guix!
> 5. A regular release cycle is a rallying point for our contributors giving them a
>    consistent calendar of when to focus on releases versus other hacking.
>
> Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
> it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
> this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
> change that would be a big improvement for our users.
>
>
> # Motivation
>
> Releases are important for any Free Software project because they update the
> user experience and are a focal point for excitement [^3].  Regular releases
> help us to improve the quality of our software by bringing focus, and
> exercising regular usage scenarios (e.g. testing the installer).
>
> The majority of distributions follow time-based releases, six months is a
> common cycle time.  For further comparison see the research on the
> [release strategies of distributions] (https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt)
> . A summary is:
>
> - NixOS: releases every six months (May/November), both rolling release and
> slower stable branch.
> - OpenSUSE: rolling release, slow-roll release and fixed releases.
> - Ubuntu: every six months, with 9 months maintenance. LTS releases every
> 2 years.
> - Debian: Every 2 years (not time fixed), with about six months of package
> updates freeze before the release while bugs are ironed out.
>
> As a rolling release Guix immediately provides the latest improvements to
> users.  Consequently, it could be argued that releases are unnecessary.
> However, they provide a focal point for the project to undertake additional
> testing and stabilisation across the repository.  They also ensure we update
> installation media, documentation, themes and web site.

I think releases are also needed for other distro package managers to
update. While users are encouraged to use the guix-install.sh script,
some will end up installing with their system's package manager. Maybe
it would be good to mention that?

>
> A specific issue caused by irregular releases is that new users/installs face a
> significant first "guix pull". This provides a poor initial user experience,
> and in some cases may even deter users [^4]. Additionally, it requires the
> project to keep old substitutes on our servers.
>
> Regular releases are also good for casual users because they provide an
> opportunity for us to promote new features and improvements.  For prospective
> users promotional activity about the release means they are more likely to hear
> about capabilities that will attract them to experiment with Guix.
>
> Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
> desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
> why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.
>
> Since Guix is used [extensively as a desktop] (https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/)
> it would make sense to align with these upstream releases.  However, given that
> Guix is a volunteer project that doesn't have the practise of releasing it's
> unrealistic to move to two releases a year. Something along these lines could
> be a future goal [^5].
>
> This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.

Is May smart if GNOME is to be targeted? I think NixOS really struggles
to make the GNOME updates in time. And there is less people working on
it on Guix as far as I know. Gnome is like two releases back? If we
wanted to include GNOME, wouldn't June make more sense to give an extra month?

Or for a better approach: is there a specific list of packages that
would be targeted so it can be used for the decision?

>
> To move onto this cycle the first release would be a little later: aiming for
> the **November of 2025**, with a short cycle to release in May 2026.
>
>
> ## Package Sets
>
> There are currently over 30,000 packages in the archive, it's unrealistic for
> all packages to receive the same amount of QA effort for a release.
>
> Many other distributions focus attention on the critical parts of their
> repository by identifying those packages that are required for a particular
> user-case.  For example, Arch Linux limits their efforts to a specific
> repository (called "main").  Ubuntu identifies various seeds for specific
> use-cases which determines their maintained packages; other packages outside
> these sets do not receive security updates.
>
> Guix is both a package manager that can be hosted on other Linux distributions,
> and a Linux distribution.  Limiting the range of packages that receive attention
> is consequently more complicated. Guix already has manifests to track which
> packages are used by [Guix System's installer](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm)
> , so this proposal extends that concept.
>
> For this proposal Guix would identify key package sets which would receive the
> most attention for QA'ing a release.
>
> The package sets would be:
>
> * minimal: packages required to boot and install a minimal Guix or Guix System
> install.  This would include the guix daemon, kernels, boot loaders,
> file-systems and minimal utilities.
> * standard: packages that create a core installation for all other uses.
> * desktop: provides the packages necessary for a desktop.  This would include
> things like X11/Wayland, desktop environments, key applications and themes.
> * server: provides packages and services for a server.  This would include
> standard server packages and services.
> * hosted: provides packages and services which are necessary in hosted usage.
>
> Guix would still make all packages and services part of a release (the entire
> archive), but only those in the `package sets` could block a release due to a
> significant bug.  The goal would be for this to be as small a set of packages
> as reasonably possible.  It would mean that developers could focus on the
> critical packages and services during a release.  As an example, this would
> mean that a major issue in the Linux kernel could block a release, but not an
> issue in a game.
>
>
> ## Platforms and Architecture tiers
>
> Guix is built and maintained on multiple different architectures, and two
> kernels (Linux, GNU Hurd).  As the goal of the project is to maximise user
> freedom this variety is significant and is a key motivator for developers.
>
> However, with limited resources (developer and CI) we want to make it as
> efficient as possible to create a release.  The more toil involved in a release
> the less likely developers are to work on it.
>
> The [2025 Guix User Survey](https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-2/)
> showed that 98% of users were on x86_64 and 19% on AArch64.  Consequently, the
> proposal is the following tiers:
>
> - Primary architectures:
>   - Architectures: x86_64, AArch64
>   - Kernel: Linux
>   - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>     specific must work to be included in the archive.
>   - Package status: package updates should build for this architecture.  If a
>     package update is broken it must not be pushed to users (e.g. master).
>   - Security: all packages that are maintained upstream receive updates
>
> - Alternative architectures
>   - Architectures: all others
>   - Kernel: Linux, Hurd
>   - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>     specific may build
>   - Package status: package updates should work for this architecture.
>     Updates that do not build for this architecure, but do build for a primary
>     architecture may be pushed to users.
>   - Security: no commitment to providing security updates for this architecture.
>
> Packages or services that do not build for the Primary architectures as part of
> a release would be removed from the archive using Guix's deprecation policy.
>
>
> ## Release artifacts
>
> Using the primary architecture tier and the package sets would involve creating
> the following release artifacts:
>
> - GNU Guix System ISO image
> - GNU Guix System QCOW2 image
> - GNU Guix installer
>
> Again in an effort to reduce developer toil, additional release artifacts could
> be created but would not be part of the formal release testing and errors would
> not block a release.
>
>
> ## Release team and project
>
> A regular release cycle should galvanise all Guix developers to work on our
> releases.  But, to ensure there are sufficient people involved a call will be
> put out to create a specific release team for each release project.  We would
> expect the final release team to be around four-six members. The release team
> will work together to fix issues and test the various release artifacts. The
> expectation is that the release projects will be as short as possible, around
> a 12 week commitment with each team member having a few hours a week to take
> part.
>
> To manage the release it's proposed that each release will have a Release Manager
> role. The role of the Release Manager is to: 
>
> - co-ordinate the release project
> - communicate with the release team and wider developers status and blockers
> - arbitrate changes to release blocking bugs, package sets and release
>   artifacts
> - influence and assist teams to resolve problems
> - define the release artifacts and create them
> - encourage and excite **everyone to create and test the release**
>
> The Release Management role is likely to require the most effort, so it will
> be rotated and consist of two people from the release team.  For each release
> there would be a primary person and a secondary person in the role.  The
> primary person is new to the role.  The secondary person has previously done it
> and is mentoring the new person.  The impact of this is that each new release
> manager is agreeing to take responsibility during two release cycles.
> This system is modelled on the [Nix release management](https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt/nix-release-mgmt.md)
> approach.
>
> One of the release team will take on the role of Release Advocate [^6].  They
> will take responsibility for preparing the release announcement and 
> coordinating the creation of content to promote the new release (e.g. web site)
> This role can be done by any member of the Guix community who has sufficient
> interest.
>
> The final release team is:
>
> - a new Release Manager
> - a returning Release Manager
> - up to 4 other members, one of whom acts as the Release Advocate
>
> The Release Managers of each release will create and communicate a release
> project plan setting out the stages and dates for each stage.  To try and
> galvanise the Guix development team to focus on the release it's envisioned
> that a release project will be about 12 weeks. See Appendix 1: Release Project
> Time-line for an example.
>
> In order to improve knowledge transfer and reduce the toil of doing releases
> the Release Managers for a release will document the release process.  There is
> inspiration for this in [NixOS's release wiki](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Home.html)
> and we already have detailed [release documentation](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
> .
>
>
> # Cost of Reverting
>
> If regular releases were not successful then the project would switch back to
> irregular releases.  There would be no impact for exiting users as they will
> be tracking the rolling release's master branch.
>
> If the project is able to successfully undertake regular releases then over
> time it may be possible to undertake full releases every six months or some
> other release cadence.
>
>
> # Drawbacks and open issues
>
> There's no particular drawback to attempting regular release.  It should be
> noted that the project is entirely dependent on volunteers so it may be that
> contributors don't have enough time available to achieve regular releases.  If
> that's the case we would revert back to irregular releases.
>
> There are various improvements that could be made to this process over time,
> but no known issues.
>
>
> # Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line
>
> To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
> The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
> weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.
>
> The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
>
> | Week of Project | Event |
> | --- | --- |
> | -5 | Nominate a release team |
> | -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
> | 01 | Release project start |
> | 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
> | 05 | Package set finalisation |
> | 06 | Initial testing |
> | 08 | Updates freeze |
> | 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
> | 08 | Ungraft master branch |
> | 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
> | 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
> | 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
> | 10 | Release candidate |
> | 12 | Final release |
> | 13 | Staging merged to master |
> | 14 | Release retrospective |
> | 15+| Relax - it's done! |
>
> ### 1. Nominate a release team
> Nominate a release team with two Release Managers (1 is the previous RM), and
> up to 4 other people who will work on the release. Put out a call for a Release
> Advocate who can be anyone in the Guix community who's willing.
>
> ### 2. Notify teams of upcoming release
> Make sure all teams are aware of the upcoming release.  This gives them 4 weeks
> to undertake any large transitions or major changes.
>
> ### 3. Release project start
> Start the project with weekly updates to guix-dev and regular meetings of the
> release team.  Encourage participation in testing and identifying bugs from
> the community.
>
> ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.

So total of 9 week freeze? Isn't that too long for users to not receive
those updates if they were ready?

I think that should be at least mentioned in the drawbacks, even if most
people won't consider it a major drawback, it sounds like a drawback to me.

But I suppose it will still be possible to commit those changes, you
just won't be able to switch the default toolchain. Though Rust, Python
etc. currently don't really support more than one version for building
other packages, at least not well.

>
> Debian defines a transition as one where a change in one package causes changes
> in another, the most common being a library.  This isn't suitable for Guix since
> any change in an input causes a change in another package.  Nonetheless, any
> change that alters a significant number of packages should be carefully
> considered and updates that cause other packages to break should be rejected.
>
> No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.

What modules exactly, all? And what kind of alterations? I suppose some
changes will still be possible, like adding a new package or service,
no?
I think it doesn't make sense to completely block alterations to the
daemon, ie. if there was a bug or security issue.

> Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be altered.
>
> ### 5. Package set finalisation
> Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
> inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.
>
> ### 6. Initial testing
> An initial testing sprint to look at packages, services, install media and
> upgrade testing. This should identify:
>
> * packages or services that may need to be removed because they fail on a
>   primary architecture

So hypothetically, if a package/service worked on non-primary
architecture or one primary architecture, but not the other, it will be
removed, completely? That doesn't sound right. Am I misunderstanding
here? Where is the package removed from, the guix repository or just
from the package set that should be passing for the release?
Either way, like this it conflicts with the earlier 'packages and
services in the minimal package set should not be altered', so I think
it should be mentioned it doesn't apply to those packages.

> * packages and services in the package sets install and can be used
> * installation artifacts can be created and used
> * example system definitions can be used
> * system upgrades
>
> A build failure of a package or service will result in it being identified for
> removal.  A build failure of a package or service that's in a package set will
> be marked as a blocker for the release.
>
> ### 7. Updates freeze
> Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
> blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.

So 5 weeeks. (I am counting the retrospective week btw)
Maybe the text should mention how many weeks the freeze is for so it's
easier to orient? It seems important to me.

>
> ### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> branch slows down from this week.
>
> This concept comes from the Nix project where they flow big changes into a
> staging branch while they do release stabilisation to prevent big flows of
> breaking changes into master which broke one of their releases [^7].

Nix doesn't use staging because of that, they use it always, mostly
because the CI cannot build the whole package set. They don't use
grafts, so there are world rebuilds like two times a month, when the
staging merges to master, and they do that only if staging has already
been built so that people get substitutes.

I think this is a misunderstanding, the linked text states that breaking
changes shouldn't be merged to staging branch, not to master branch. In
turn, it also isn't merged to master branch, because staging is merged
there, quite regularly. This can be most easily seen from the table they
have with affected branches mentioned.

So while I agree with the general motion that changes should be merged
somewhere else, it's not right to state Nix does this.

By the way, since you linked it already, citing their drawbacks

Citing from [^7]:
> Breaking changes to Release Critical Packages will have to wait a
> maximum of 4 weeks to be merged into staging. Other breaking changes
> targeting staging will have to wait a maximum of 2 weeks to be merged.
> Staging-next iterations will follow a 1 week development cycle during
> the release timeline. Breaking changes to Release Critical Packages
> will not appear in master for around 7 weeks (4 weeks being disallowed
> to be merged to staging, 1 week for last staging-next during ZHF, ~2
> weeks average in staging-next). Pull requests which are able to target
> master will not be interrupted d

So they do have 7 week period to not merge anything critical to master,
that's less than what is proposed here. I think it should be kept to as
low number as reasonably possible. That probably have to be analyzed,
and I think the longer time from bigger projects, like GNOME, the more
time to prepare to it even before the release schedule kicks in.

Back to Steve's message:
>
> Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
> minor package upgrades.
>
> ### 9. Ungraft master branch
> Guix master is ungrafted to minimise the difference with users of the release
> initial 'guix pull' experience.

Could you clarify what this means?

>
> ### 10. Bugs and documentation focus
> The master branch should be quiet at this point as everyone should focus on
> testing and resolving any bugs.  New documentation can also be done.
>
> ### 11. Branch and tag release branch
> The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.
>
> * master branch: security only.
> * release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.
>
> Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
> changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
> release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.

Am I reading correctly, no updates whatsoever for 4/5 weeks!! :O
Shouldn't this at least only affect the packages in the package sets?
Even so, feels like too long.

>
> ### 12. Testing and Hard Freeze
> RC bugs and issues should be solved for the release branch.
>
> Only changes that will fix a non-building package, or a bug in a package are
> allowed.  Ideally avoid new upstream versions, but it's acceptable to use a new
> minor upstream version to solve a bug.
>
> Any non-building packages are removed.

>
> ### 13. Release candidate
> Release artifacts are created for the release candidate.  There's a final 2
> weeks of testing with these artifacts.  If there are no release blocking bugs
> discovered then the releas uses these artifacts.  If bugs are found/fixed then
> release artifacts are regenerated as needed.
>
> ### 14. Final release
> Final release is announced and new release artifacts are published.
>
> ### 15. Staging merged to master
> If there were any breaking changes placed onto the `staging` branch then these
> can be merged into the `master` branch at this point.  The master branch then
> continues as normal.
>
> ### 16. Release retrospective
> A retrospective is undertaken by the release team to understand how the release
> process can be improved to make it more reliable for users and easier/efficient
> for developers.
>
> ### 17. Relax!
> The release has been cut, everyone is now excited, and hopefully all is well.
> Take some time off from release work!  There's some time built-in here to
> relax and get back to other hacking before it's time to start again with the
> next release.
>
> ---
>
> [^1]: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2022/gnu-guix-1.4.0-released/
>
> [^2]: Examples of distributions that have cadences for different users and screnarios
>       are Nix's stable branch, OpenSUSE's SlowRoll branch and Ubuntu's LTS
>       (Long Term Support) releases.
>
> [^3]: the aspect of creating news and excitement for casual users is well-known
>       in the FOSS community. An example from 
>       [GNOME's earlier days](https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-June/msg00041.html).
>
> [^4]: GuixDays 2025 release discussion brought up examples of Guix not being
>       used to teach users because the initial pull was so slow that the
>       teaching session would have completed before 'guix pull' would finish.
>       We know guix pull being slow was identified by users as a challenge.
>
> [^5]: OpenSuse has a [SlowRoll branch](https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Slowroll)
>       where they release a smaller set of package updates on a monthly basis.
>       This is an interesting innovation as it allows users to still benefit from
>       a rolling release but at a slower rate of change (fewer regressions).
>       They are also not dropping too far behind the rolling release, so there's
>       not as much maintenance for OpenSUSE developers dealing with an out of
>       date release branch and having to backport software.
>
> [^6]: Nix has the concept of a [Release Editor](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Release-Editors.html)
>       who is responsible for improving the legibility of the release notes.  Our
>       version extends the idea to make sure other artifacts and activities that
>       promote the release happen.
>
> [^7]: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0085-nixos-release-stablization.md

Regards
Rutherther
  

Hello,

probably I should not reply quickly every time someone writes to this GCD
so as not to obstruct a healthy discussion :)

The timeline should probably be discussed and fixed to some concrete
values during the discussion period, as this is an important detail;
with a balance between moving quickly (very desirable) and what we can
effectively achieve. My fear is rather that the timeline is already
too ambitious :)  Just to put things into perspective, we have a backlog
of team branches to be merged right now of about 3 months.

So then not merging to master for 5 weeks or so would almost not be
noticeable...

Andreas
  

On Fri, May 9, 2025 at 8:54 AM Steve George <steve@futurile.net> wrote:
>
[...]
> Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
> it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
> this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
> change that would be a big improvement for our users.
[...]

This is a proposal for a beautiful release process. The process is
detailed and well thought out, but without stability these beautiful
releases quickly decay to our status quo. And I agree that we do not
have the capacity to maintain two branches (though it could solve our
naming issue).

1) It seems a waste to synchronize around a point-in-time beautiful
release only to have this break on the user's first pull. And builds
will quickly break when the freeze is lifted and the backlog
unblocked. The alternative to a pull is to forego security updates for
a year until the next release.

2) The project is currently unable to keep up with the teams workflow,
and now we are introducing an additional, quite long pause into the
calendar.

3) Package cleanup is a problem that I believe we are afraid to
address. I agree that we should not have package "ownership", but
perhaps "sponsorship" or (to borrow from this GCD) "advocate" with
notifications when builds break on CI. I believe this proposal is too
aggressive in pruning packages without considering alternatives (in
another GCD).

I think we should greatly reduce the scope and initially try (as I
noted in December buried in the "On the quest for a new release model"
discussion) creating a release team which would:
1) operate as any other team
2) be responsible only for building and improving release artifacts
3) operate with a cadence sufficient to build and retain this
expertise (which would currently be one cycle of the queue, but
ideally every ~3-4 months)

By using the teams queue everyone will know when the release is
coming, and whether their branch will be merged before or after the
next release.

Greg
  

Steve George <steve@futurile.net> writes:

> On  9 May, Z572 wrote:
>> Steve George <steve@futurile.net> writes:
>> 
>> > +
>> > +### 8. Breaking changes to staging
>> > +To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
>> > +sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
>> 
>> I think we may need to change the name. We used the name staging before
>> switching to the team-based process. If we reuse this name, it may cause
>> confusion for later users when searching for information.
>> 
>
> No problem, is there something you would favour?
>
> If not, what about `next-master` to indicate that it's the next
> master? If we think that's too generic we could give it a time-based
> date `202509-next-master` - meaning it will be merged back in during
> September 2025.

I don't have any idea, 202509-next-master might be good, I don't know
what others think
  

On 2025-05-09, Steve George wrote:
> It's been ~2.5 years since the last Guix release, which led me to
> think we should do another one! Initially, I was just going to see if
> anyone wanted to create a release project. But, before I knew it I was
> writing a GCD! ...

Thanks for nudging this forward! :)

> # Summary
>
> Guix doesn't have regular release cycle which has led to infrequent new
> releases. Sporadic releases are detrimental for our users, contributors and
> the project.  This GCD proposes we implement an annual release cadence and
> simplify the release process to make releases easier.
>
> The project currently releases new versions of Guix on an ad hoc frequency.
> The 1.4.0 release happened in December 2022 [^1], which is almost 2.5 years
> ago, at the time of writing.
>
> The weaknesses in this release strategy are:
>
> 1. No clarity on when the next Guix release is.
> 2. Releases are complex and toil for developers.
> 3. Rolling updates aren't suitable for all users.
>
> This GCD proposes the following combined solution:
>
> 1. Regular releases: switch to a time-based release of Guix every year.
> 2. Efficient releases: use *package sets* and *supported architectures* to
> reduce the scope of work required to create a Guix release.
>
> The benefits will be:
>
> 1. New installations of Guix will be better because installation media and
>    manuals will be up to date, and the initial 'guix pull' will be faster.
> 2. Package installation will improve for all users.  Packages will be ungrafted
>    during each release cycle.
> 3. Package quality will improve for all users, because regular releases will
>    provide a cadence for focusing on our quality.
> 4. A regular cadence for promoting the project to potential users.  Helping us
>    to inform more people about the benefits of using GNU Guix!
> 5. A regular release cycle is a rallying point for our contributors giving them a
>    consistent calendar of when to focus on releases versus other hacking.
>
> Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
> it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
> this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
> change that would be a big improvement for our users.
>
>
> # Motivation
>
> Releases are important for any Free Software project because they update the
> user experience and are a focal point for excitement [^3].  Regular releases
> help us to improve the quality of our software by bringing focus, and
> exercising regular usage scenarios (e.g. testing the installer).
>
> The majority of distributions follow time-based releases, six months is a
> common cycle time.  For further comparison see the research on the
> [release strategies of distributions] (https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt)
> . A summary is:
...
> - Debian: Every 2 years (not time fixed), with about six months of package
> updates freeze before the release while bugs are ironed out.

Maybe more like 4 or 5 months, but who's counting? :)

Notably, Debian has time based freezes, and releases "quando paratus
est" ... e.g. when it is ready (e.g. no major blockers to release).

I think this is a more realistic and honest model for a volunteer
project than trying to make a time-based "release", as you can predict
or decree when you are going to start the process, but you cannot
reliably predict when you will finish.


> Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
> desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
> why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.
...
> This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.
>
> To move onto this cycle the first release would be a little later: aiming for
> the **November of 2025**, with a short cycle to release in May 2026.

For what it is worth, May would be awful timing for getting guix into
Debian stable releases, which tend to approach a hard freeze around that
time of year, so Debian stable will always end up effectively (at least)
one release behind... but you cannot please everybody. :/

A yearly release cycle would at least allow Debian to provide backports
of guix more reliably, at least...

Of course, we are about to see the second Debian release since the
release of guix 1.4.0, so this proposal would still be a huge
improvement!

> ## Package Sets
...
> Guix is both a package manager that can be hosted on other Linux distributions,
> and a Linux distribution.  Limiting the range of packages that receive attention
> is consequently more complicated. Guix already has manifests to track which
> packages are used by [Guix System's installer](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm)
> , so this proposal extends that concept.
>
> For this proposal Guix would identify key package sets which would receive the
> most attention for QA'ing a release.
>
> The package sets would be:
>
> * minimal: packages required to boot and install a minimal Guix or Guix System
> install.  This would include the guix daemon, kernels, boot loaders,
> file-systems and minimal utilities.

This seems a reasonable broad-strokes starting point, nice!


> * standard: packages that create a core installation for all other
> uses.

I fail to see a distinction between minimal and standard, perhaps due to
"core installation", so this perhaps could use a bit more elaboration.


> * desktop: provides the packages necessary for a desktop.  This would include
> things like X11/Wayland, desktop environments, key applications and themes.

It seems like all desktop environments is awfully broad, as there are
some unusual or niche desktop environments in Guix, although Guix users
maybe also tend to fill certain niches more than the general
population. Still, I suspect this should maybe be narrowed down to a
more specific set...


> * server: provides packages and services for a server.  This would include
> standard server packages and services.

What are "standard server packages and services" ?


> * hosted: provides packages and services which are necessary in hosted usage.

What are these?


> ## Platforms and Architecture tiers
>
> Guix is built and maintained on multiple different architectures, and two
> kernels (Linux, GNU Hurd).  As the goal of the project is to maximise user
> freedom this variety is significant and is a key motivator for developers.
...
> - Primary architectures:
>   - Architectures: x86_64, AArch64
>   - Kernel: Linux
>   - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>     specific must work to be included in the archive.
>   - Package status: package updates should build for this architecture.  If a
>     package update is broken it must not be pushed to users (e.g. master).
>   - Security: all packages that are maintained upstream receive updates
>
> - Alternative architectures
>   - Architectures: all others
>   - Kernel: Linux, Hurd
>   - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>     specific may build
>   - Package status: package updates should work for this architecture.
>     Updates that do not build for this architecure, but do build for a primary
>     architecture may be pushed to users.
>   - Security: no commitment to providing security updates for this architecture.
>
> Packages or services that do not build for the Primary architectures as part of
> a release would be removed from the archive using Guix's deprecation policy.

Sounds reasonable.


> ## Release artifacts
>
> Using the primary architecture tier and the package sets would involve creating
> the following release artifacts:
>
> - GNU Guix System ISO image
> - GNU Guix System QCOW2 image
> - GNU Guix installer
>
> Again in an effort to reduce developer toil, additional release artifacts could
> be created but would not be part of the formal release testing and errors would
> not block a release.

Do we currently have all these for x86_64-linux and aarch64-linux, the
two proposed primary architectures?


> # Drawbacks and open issues
>
> There's no particular drawback to attempting regular release.  It should be
> noted that the project is entirely dependent on volunteers so it may be that
> contributors don't have enough time available to achieve regular releases.  If
> that's the case we would revert back to irregular releases.
>
> There are various improvements that could be made to this process over time,
> but no known issues.

I think someone already mentioned freezing master should be noted as a
drawback. I would, in a weird way, second that, despite thinking it is
actually a feature. :)


> # Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line
>
> To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
> The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
> weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.

Ambitious, but may as well aim high!


> The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
>
> | Week of Project | Event |
> | --- | --- |
> | -5 | Nominate a release team |
> | -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
> | 01 | Release project start |
> | 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
> | 05 | Package set finalisation |
> | 06 | Initial testing |
> | 08 | Updates freeze |
> | 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
> | 08 | Ungraft master branch |
> | 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
> | 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
> | 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
> | 10 | Release candidate |
> | 12 | Final release |
> | 13 | Staging merged to master |
> | 14 | Release retrospective |
> | 15+| Relax - it's done! |

The weeks listed here are -5 indexed, but are described as a 1 indexed
bulleted list, it would be nice to keep them using the same indexing!

> ### 1. Nominate a release team
(a.k.a. ### -5.)

> ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.
...
> No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
> Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be altered.
>
> ### 5. Package set finalisation
> Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
> inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.

It seems like you would need to clarify the toolchain package set the
week prior.


> ### 7. Updates freeze
> Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
> blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.

Yay! This should also give the build farms a chance to "catch up" with
builds.


> ### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> branch slows down from this week.
...
> Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
> minor package upgrades.

If they are minor package upgrades, do you even need a team branch?


> ### 11. Branch and tag release branch
> The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.
>
> * master branch: security only.
> * release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.
>
> Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
> changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
> release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.

Spell out "RC" at least once in the document, presumably "Release
Critical"?


> ### 13. Release candidate
> Release artifacts are created for the release candidate.  There's a final 2
> weeks of testing with these artifacts.

Not sure how you cram two weeks into week 13! (or... is that week 10?)
:)


> If there are no release blocking bugs discovered then the releas uses
                                                         ^^ release ^^
> these artifacts.  If bugs are found/fixed then release artifacts are
> regenerated as needed.

As a downstream packager of Guix for Debian, I would appreciate
(pre)release candidates be included earlier in the process somehow.

Maybe even in sync with a weekly cadence in line with this release
process?

I usually do find bugs in the process of packaging Guix for Debian, and
it would be nice to more easily catch those earlier.


> ### 14. Final release
> Final release is announced and new release artifacts are published.

Yay!


Thanks again, really glad to see some good thoughts and energy go into
this!


live well,
  vagrant
  

On 9 May, Rutherther wrote:
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> thanks for this. I have a few notes left in the text, but generally I
> like this.
(...)

Thanks for the supportive comment, appreciate it and the detailed thoughts below.

> I think the proposal is missing the version numbering that will be used,
> like, let's say the releases are x.y.z, is y increased? Or should the
> numbering going to be switched to something like yyyy.mm?
(...)

AIUI the project did 1.2.0->1.3.0->1.4.0. There isn't a proposal to change the numbering of the releases. I don't think it's _required_ to change it to implement this GDC.

Equally I'm very comfortable with yyyy.mm, perhaps something to discuss within the group?

> Also, should the GCD document what happens if something goes horribly
> wrong after the release is made, ie. a new minor release created to
> mitigate the issue?
(...)

Always a risk! To keep the scope of this proposal realistic it only impacts the release artifacts so the installers. After an initial 'guix pull' the user will be back the rolling release of master. Consequently, for anything that goes "horribly wrong" the question is whether it's within the long-term "release artifacts", if it is then I agree the Release Team could re-roll the artefacts and label as a new minor release. I would leave it to the Release Team's discretion.

> Steve George <steve@futurile.net> writes:
(...)
> > The benefits will be:
> >
> > 1. New installations of Guix will be better because installation media and
> >    manuals will be up to date, and the initial 'guix pull' will be faster.
> 
> The initial pull won't be faster, the pull is so slow because there is
> no checkout and no commits checked for auth, not because the iso is so
> old. No matter the age of iso, the full clone has to be made and authenticated.
> If there was a checkout in the cache, it would be faster, the more up to
> date it is, the faster the pull is. Additionally what would greatly
> improve the experience is if this checkout has been copied to the
> installed system.
> But that's not related to the releases themselves, but to how the iso is made.

I agree the initial pull is a significant problem. Nicolas Graves told me at Guix Days 2025 of Andrew Tropin talking about not using Guix in a lab set-up because the initial pull was so significant that the lab would have finished before it had completed!

Some solutions were discussed at Guix Days 2025 which (e.g. shallow copies, using a checkout cache, finding different ways to chain the commit auth) I think we should prioritise. IF that happened, THEN we'd be in the situation where releasing new artefacts improves the user experience both at initial install and initial usage.

(...)
> > As a rolling release Guix immediately provides the latest improvements to
> > users.  Consequently, it could be argued that releases are unnecessary.
> > However, they provide a focal point for the project to undertake additional
> > testing and stabilisation across the repository.  They also ensure we update
> > installation media, documentation, themes and web site.
> 
> I think releases are also needed for other distro package managers to
> update. While users are encouraged to use the guix-install.sh script,
> some will end up installing with their system's package manager. Maybe
> it would be good to mention that?
(...)

Agreed, I can add that. 

Perhaps Vagrant can comment on the postive (or negative) aspects of having a regular release from Guix when packaging Guix for a distribution (Debian). 

> > Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
> > desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
> > why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.
> >
> > Since Guix is used [extensively as a desktop] (https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/)
> > it would make sense to align with these upstream releases.  However, given that
> > Guix is a volunteer project that doesn't have the practise of releasing it's
> > unrealistic to move to two releases a year. Something along these lines could
> > be a future goal [^5].
> >
> > This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.
> 
> Is May smart if GNOME is to be targeted? I think NixOS really struggles
> to make the GNOME updates in time. And there is less people working on
> it on Guix as far as I know. Gnome is like two releases back? If we
> wanted to include GNOME, wouldn't June make more sense to give an extra month?
> 
> Or for a better approach: is there a specific list of packages that
> would be targeted so it can be used for the decision?
(...)

The number of people we have working on Guix, and the bandwidth they have "as volunteers" is the constraint we're working with.  In a context where our archive is very large compared to those that many core teams work on (see extended notes on other distributions I put togeher). The balance I've tried to strike is how to make a concrete step forward in predictability/stability without having unrealistic expectations on what we can achieve. I hope that's clear in the GCD!

Given those constraints a practical step forward it to introduce `package sets` which limit the amount of work around a release. This doesn't directly address whether a particular desktop is up to date, but it does mean we don't spend time fixing parts of the package archive that don't directly lead to an installed system (the example I use is games).

The Release Team would have to work in conjunction with the Teams on the package sets, there's initial work here:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm

There's a possible secondary "focus" benefit where we'd all know that we're targeting $SPRING for a release, so the whole group would (I hope) pay attention on the key packages in the package sets.

I have no strong feel on when in the $SPRING it is, so if the group wants June then great.

(...)
> > # Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line
> >
> > To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
> > The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
> > weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.
> >
> > The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
> >
> > | Week of Project | Event |
> > | --- | --- |
> > | -5 | Nominate a release team |
> > | -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
> > | 01 | Release project start |
> > | 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
> > | 05 | Package set finalisation |
> > | 06 | Initial testing |
> > | 08 | Updates freeze |
> > | 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
> > | 08 | Ungraft master branch |
> > | 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
> > | 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
> > | 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
> > | 10 | Release candidate |
> > | 12 | Final release |
> > | 13 | Staging merged to master |
> > | 14 | Release retrospective |
> > | 15+| Relax - it's done! |
(...)
> > ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> > No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> > (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.
> 
> So total of 9 week freeze? Isn't that too long for users to not receive
> those updates if they were ready?
> 
> I think that should be at least mentioned in the drawbacks, even if most
> people won't consider it a major drawback, it sounds like a drawback to me.
> 
> But I suppose it will still be possible to commit those changes, you
> just won't be able to switch the default toolchain. Though Rust, Python
> etc. currently don't really support more than one version for building
> other packages, at least not well.
(...)

This sets out a specific freeze period where we wouldn't make those changes once a year, so 9 weeks in a year for major transitions.

It's somewhat arguable about how quickly we're making transition changes at the moment. Look at the available versions of toolchains from Perl, Python and these are taking 3-4 months on team branches. 

If we were in a position where we regularly had transitions ready to go ("if they were ready") then we could look at ways to shorten. 

To avoid developers feeling blocked up toolchain/transition changes can go to a <staging or some-name> branch.

(...)
> > Debian defines a transition as one where a change in one package causes changes
> > in another, the most common being a library.  This isn't suitable for Guix since
> > any change in an input causes a change in another package.  Nonetheless, any
> > change that alters a significant number of packages should be carefully
> > considered and updates that cause other packages to break should be rejected.
> >
> > No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
> 
> What modules exactly, all? And what kind of alterations? I suppose some
> changes will still be possible, like adding a new package or service,
> no?
> I think it doesn't make sense to completely block alterations to the
> daemon, ie. if there was a bug or security issue.

I'll amend that to say 'Guix daemon' as this is still the same concept about breaking changes.

In _all cases_ security updates will still be allowed as we don't want to negatively impact users.

New updates and packages keep flowing through master until 'Updates freeze' (week 8).

>
> > Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be altered.
> >
> > ### 5. Package set finalisation
> > Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
> > inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.
> >
> > ### 6. Initial testing
> > An initial testing sprint to look at packages, services, install media and
> > upgrade testing. This should identify:
> >
> > * packages or services that may need to be removed because they fail on a
> >   primary architecture
> 
> So hypothetically, if a package/service worked on non-primary
> architecture or one primary architecture, but not the other, it will be
> removed, completely? That doesn't sound right. Am I misunderstanding
> here? Where is the package removed from, the guix repository or just
> from the package set that should be passing for the release?
> Either way, like this it conflicts with the earlier 'packages and
> services in the minimal package set should not be altered', so I think
> it should be mentioned it doesn't apply to those packages.
> 

In terms of a package that works on one primary architecture but not on another the Release Team would have some options on how to mitigate:

1. Fix it to work on both architectures
2. Promote an alternative for that architecture
3. Document as a limitation, with a workaround in the release notes
4. Remove it from the archive

In part the discussion should be about whether it's a regression or a case where package 'foo' has never worked on that architecture. I would leave it to the Release Team to make a case-by-case decision.

If the decision was to remove the package note that it would go through the current Deprecation Policy which notifies and gives developers a two months to pick up the package.

The section earlier about the Platforms and Architecture tiers should lay this out clearly - anything I can improve there to make it clearer? 

> > * packages and services in the package sets install and can be used
> > * installation artifacts can be created and used
> > * example system definitions can be used
> > * system upgrades
> >
> > A build failure of a package or service will result in it being identified for
> > removal.  A build failure of a package or service that's in a package set will
> > be marked as a blocker for the release.
> >
> > ### 7. Updates freeze
> > Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
> > blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.
> 
> So 5 weeeks. (I am counting the retrospective week btw)
> Maybe the text should mention how many weeks the freeze is for so it's
> easier to orient? It seems important to me.

From 'Updates Freeze' (week 8) to 'Staging merged to master' (week 13) so 5 weeks in this plan. For those 5 weeks updates would go to the team branches or to 'staging'. After staging is merged (week 13) then team branches can be merged into master and we proceed as normal.

The main thing is how short a time period can we do this in, since we'd only have from week 8->10 to ungraft the master branch, do the release branch, test the release and fix any RC bugs.

The balance is a window that lets us focus on the release without divergence that would destabilise, versus a long closed window which is bad for our rolling release. Given the volunteer nature of the team, 5 weeks seemed about right but we can iterate this as we learn.

In my mind this project plan is an initial one, and then as we move forward from release to release each Release Team can iterate and improve.

> >
> > ### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> > To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> > sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> > branch slows down from this week.
> >
> > This concept comes from the Nix project where they flow big changes into a
> > staging branch while they do release stabilisation to prevent big flows of
> > breaking changes into master which broke one of their releases [^7].
> 
> Nix doesn't use staging because of that, they use it always, mostly
> because the CI cannot build the whole package set. They don't use
> grafts, so there are world rebuilds like two times a month, when the
> staging merges to master, and they do that only if staging has already
> been built so that people get substitutes.
> 
> I think this is a misunderstanding, the linked text states that breaking
> changes shouldn't be merged to staging branch, not to master branch. In
> turn, it also isn't merged to master branch, because staging is merged
> there, quite regularly. This can be most easily seen from the table they
> have with affected branches mentioned.
> 
> So while I agree with the general motion that changes should be merged
> somewhere else, it's not right to state Nix does this.

Overloaded use of "staging" - I should have used a different branch name.

> By the way, since you linked it already, citing their drawbacks
> 
> Citing from [^7]:
> > Breaking changes to Release Critical Packages will have to wait a
> > maximum of 4 weeks to be merged into staging. Other breaking changes
> > targeting staging will have to wait a maximum of 2 weeks to be merged.
> > Staging-next iterations will follow a 1 week development cycle during
> > the release timeline. Breaking changes to Release Critical Packages
> > will not appear in master for around 7 weeks (4 weeks being disallowed
> > to be merged to staging, 1 week for last staging-next during ZHF, ~2
> > weeks average in staging-next). Pull requests which are able to target
> > master will not be interrupted d

Their RFC is worth reading, I found it really interesting. It's definitely a balancing act between wanting to do stabilisation and meanwhile teams want to move forward. If too many changes flow in then the whole release is destabilised, equally how long a closed window makes sense!

> So they do have 7 week period to not merge anything critical to master,
> that's less than what is proposed here. I think it should be kept to as
> low number as reasonably possible. That probably have to be analyzed,
> and I think the longer time from bigger projects, like GNOME, the more
> time to prepare to it even before the release schedule kicks in.
(...)

For everyone else who isn't as aware (as you are) of Nix's details:

1. I encourage you to read their release wiki which covers many of the aspects they are trying to balance: https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Release-Editors.html

2. I worked up a summary of Nix's release strategy (as I understood it): https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt/nix-release-mgmt.md

I would also love PR's on the release management notes to fix things etc! I covered Nix, Arch and Ubuntu - I also have some raw notes on Fedora if anyone's interested.

I agree with as "low as possible", I've been cautious because it's a small volunteer team - I'm open to what the group thinks.


> Back to Steve's message:
> >
> > Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
> > minor package upgrades.
> >
> > ### 9. Ungraft master branch
> > Guix master is ungrafted to minimise the difference with users of the release
> > initial 'guix pull' experience.
> 
> Could you clarify what this means?

Someone more experienced that me should address this aspect in all it's gory details!


> > ### 10. Bugs and documentation focus
> > The master branch should be quiet at this point as everyone should focus on
> > testing and resolving any bugs.  New documentation can also be done.
> >
> > ### 11. Branch and tag release branch
> > The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.
> >
> > * master branch: security only.
> > * release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.
> >
> > Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
> > changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
> > release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.
> 
> Am I reading correctly, no updates whatsoever for 4/5 weeks!! :O
> Shouldn't this at least only affect the packages in the package sets?
> Even so, feels like too long.
(...)

Correct, only security to master for 5 weeks. 

Since we have to degraft the whole of the tree, cut a release, test that it installs as a Linux distro, and that it installs as a package manager on the popular Linux distros - this time will fly!

I actually don't have a fixed view on the window, so open to what the group thinks is achievable! 


Steve / Futurile
  

Hi Greg,

On 9 May, Greg Hogan wrote:
> On Fri, May 9, 2025 at 8:54 AM Steve George <steve@futurile.net> wrote:
> >
> [...]
> > Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
> > it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
> > this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
> > change that would be a big improvement for our users.
> [...]
> 
> This is a proposal for a beautiful release process. The process is
> detailed and well thought out, but without stability these beautiful
> releases quickly decay to our status quo.

Thank-you for the kind words - my aim is to be pragmatic about what we can achieve. Taking a concrete step forward allows us to make progress and who knows maybe we can achieve more in subsequent steps.

> And I agree that we do not
> have the capacity to maintain two branches (though it could solve our
> naming issue).
> 
> 1) It seems a waste to synchronize around a point-in-time beautiful
> release only to have this break on the user's first pull. And builds
> will quickly break when the freeze is lifted and the backlog
> unblocked. The alternative to a pull is to forego security updates for
> a year until the next release.
(...)

I hope the initial user experience wouldn't be to "break on the user's first pull", since with annual releases we wouldn't have release artefacts that are 2.5 years out of date. And, we'd also degraft regularly which would be beneficial for all users.

As you can tell I would _love_ us to be able to have a slower moving branch, but purposefully have kept the GCD more limited. For now focusing on the step forward of regular releases.

> 2) The project is currently unable to keep up with the teams workflow,
> and now we are introducing an additional, quite long pause into the
> calendar.
> 

I agree this is a problem, for the purposes of focusing discussion on this GCD lets keep it out of the remit. Perhaps a separate discussion or separate GCD!

> 3) Package cleanup is a problem that I believe we are afraid to
> address. I agree that we should not have package "ownership", but
> perhaps "sponsorship" or (to borrow from this GCD) "advocate" with
> notifications when builds break on CI. I believe this proposal is too
> aggressive in pruning packages without considering alternatives (in
> another GCD).

Can you point me to the part where you think it's too aggressive? Maybe it's overstating it in some way. In my mind I think the release is a checkpoint where we can use the package sets and the project plan focus to do what we should be doing using our existing process.

> I think we should greatly reduce the scope and initially try (as I
> noted in December buried in the "On the quest for a new release model"
> discussion) creating a release team which would:
> 1) operate as any other team
> 2) be responsible only for building and improving release artifacts
> 3) operate with a cadence sufficient to build and retain this
> expertise (which would currently be one cycle of the queue, but
> ideally every ~3-4 months)
> 
> By using the teams queue everyone will know when the release is
> coming, and whether their branch will be merged before or after the
> next release.

In a way this does create a team in the way you brought up in December [0]. It creates a "release team" for one project and tries to limit the "toil" by keeping the project to 3-4 months of effort. It defines a specific time when a release will happen so everyone knows when it's happening, can get involved and help.

Where it differs is that realistically the release artifacts involve the kernel, core packages, networking, base utils, guix daemon, and graphical environments [1]. I don't think this can be done by 3-4 volunteers, there has to be some co-ordination and energy from all teams - we are a small team after all!

Does that address your concerns?

Steve / Futurile

[0] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-12/msg00205.html
[1] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm
  

Hi Steve,

I agree on the motivation and the analysis, but I want to share a 
thought before getting into the specifics.

 From the GCD I understand that:

We don't release much because it requires a lot of work to make them, 
but your proposal is make more of them, making the process easier, 
clearer and more effective, but still requiring some coordination and 
work (two things we might lack a lot in our community).

All this because releasing more often is better for:

- a shorter first guix pull
- substitutes maintenance
- promotion (features, excitement, documentation...)

 From here I'm trying to take a lazier approach that is to step 
backwards a little bit and think about what a release actually is.

And I wonder: what is preventing us from embracing our master branch and 
making the whole process fully automatic?

It's not a rhetorical question, I actually mean it.

We already have a News system that lists the major changes since the 
previous guix pull and everybody is in master already (that's how this 
software works!). Could we just create the release artifacts with an 
automatic process that is launched every N days or N commits?

That process would cover the three points properly if our master branch 
was more or less stable, which it is or at least we are supposing it is 
every single time we `guix pull`, and if we had an up-to-date 
documentation, which we should have anyway. Maybe the excitement and 
feature communication is not as well covered but we could make some 
release notes from the News we have like in any other guix pull, and 
point to blog posts that we have been writing as the features were 
implemented (maybe write more of them?).

I'm not proposing it as a practical solution (well, maybe I am!), but as 
a thought process to find where the rough corners are and what are we 
*really* trying to solve with the process. If we could just generate the 
release artifacts from a script, then it's not just that our releases 
are slow, but something else. Get what I mean?

That would be for me the ideal world, where our software is stable 
enough to be released by itself just because we want to provide a 
shorter first `guix pull`. Or is it something else that we are providing?

How stupid it is what I'm saying here?

Sometimes, if something feels like a lot to do, because it is important, 
the solution is not to put more resources on it, but to make it less 
important, let it happen more often and don't pay as much as attention 
to it.

My feelings here are we don't really release much because we already 
bought the rolling-release and we just don't think about the release 
that much. If we lived for two years and a half without a release, maybe 
we are right and the releases are not that important.

Should we make them more important or less important?

Somehow what I'm trying to say here is if we need an exceptional effort 
(meaning releases are an exception) for every release or if we should 
bet more on the everyday work and let the rest happen. This might give 
us some relief about the obligation to make releases but also some extra 
motivation to be exceptionally good every single day of the year.

I don't know.

Steve, you asked for my thoughts, and here they are: probably not what 
you expected (:

The proposal feels very good though, this was just my overall impression.

Best,
Ekaitz

On 2025-05-09 14:53, Steve George wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> It's been ~2.5 years since the last Guix release, which led me to think we should do another one! Initially, I was just going to see if anyone wanted to create a release project. But, before I knew it I was writing a GCD! ...
> 
> Below you'll find a proposal for moving to a regular release cycle.
> 
> Thanks to Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès and Efraim Flashner for their initial comments and insights. They've agreed to sponsor it - which means they agree with the general direction (but not necessarily with all aspects), and will help to 'garden' the discussion to move us towards a consensus on whether it's a good proposal.
> 
> This is a **draft** submission so I look forward to your consideration of it, thoughts and comments.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve / Futurile
> 
> 
> title: Regular and efficient releases
> id: 005
> status: draft
> discussion: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/78332
> authors: Steve George
> sponsors: Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès, Efraim Flashner
> date: <date when the discussion period starts>
> SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-or-later
> ---
> 
> # Summary
> 
> Guix doesn't have regular release cycle which has led to infrequent new
> releases. Sporadic releases are detrimental for our users, contributors and
> the project.  This GCD proposes we implement an annual release cadence and
> simplify the release process to make releases easier.
> 
> The project currently releases new versions of Guix on an ad hoc frequency.
> The 1.4.0 release happened in December 2022 [^1], which is almost 2.5 years
> ago, at the time of writing.
> 
> The weaknesses in this release strategy are:
> 
> 1. No clarity on when the next Guix release is.
> 2. Releases are complex and toil for developers.
> 3. Rolling updates aren't suitable for all users.
> 
> This GCD proposes the following combined solution:
> 
> 1. Regular releases: switch to a time-based release of Guix every year.
> 2. Efficient releases: use *package sets* and *supported architectures* to
> reduce the scope of work required to create a Guix release.
> 
> The benefits will be:
> 
> 1. New installations of Guix will be better because installation media and
>     manuals will be up to date, and the initial 'guix pull' will be faster.
> 2. Package installation will improve for all users.  Packages will be ungrafted
>     during each release cycle.
> 3. Package quality will improve for all users, because regular releases will
>     provide a cadence for focusing on our quality.
> 4. A regular cadence for promoting the project to potential users.  Helping us
>     to inform more people about the benefits of using GNU Guix!
> 5. A regular release cycle is a rallying point for our contributors giving them a
>     consistent calendar of when to focus on releases versus other hacking.
> 
> Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
> it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
> this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
> change that would be a big improvement for our users.
> 
> 
> # Motivation
> 
> Releases are important for any Free Software project because they update the
> user experience and are a focal point for excitement [^3].  Regular releases
> help us to improve the quality of our software by bringing focus, and
> exercising regular usage scenarios (e.g. testing the installer).
> 
> The majority of distributions follow time-based releases, six months is a
> common cycle time.  For further comparison see the research on the
> [release strategies of distributions] (https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt)
> . A summary is:
> 
> - NixOS: releases every six months (May/November), both rolling release and
> slower stable branch.
> - OpenSUSE: rolling release, slow-roll release and fixed releases.
> - Ubuntu: every six months, with 9 months maintenance. LTS releases every
> 2 years.
> - Debian: Every 2 years (not time fixed), with about six months of package
> updates freeze before the release while bugs are ironed out.
> 
> As a rolling release Guix immediately provides the latest improvements to
> users.  Consequently, it could be argued that releases are unnecessary.
> However, they provide a focal point for the project to undertake additional
> testing and stabilisation across the repository.  They also ensure we update
> installation media, documentation, themes and web site.
> 
> A specific issue caused by irregular releases is that new users/installs face a
> significant first "guix pull". This provides a poor initial user experience,
> and in some cases may even deter users [^4]. Additionally, it requires the
> project to keep old substitutes on our servers.
> 
> Regular releases are also good for casual users because they provide an
> opportunity for us to promote new features and improvements.  For prospective
> users promotional activity about the release means they are more likely to hear
> about capabilities that will attract them to experiment with Guix.
> 
> Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
> desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
> why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.
> 
> Since Guix is used [extensively as a desktop] (https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/)
> it would make sense to align with these upstream releases.  However, given that
> Guix is a volunteer project that doesn't have the practise of releasing it's
> unrealistic to move to two releases a year. Something along these lines could
> be a future goal [^5].
> 
> This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.
> 
> To move onto this cycle the first release would be a little later: aiming for
> the **November of 2025**, with a short cycle to release in May 2026.
> 
> 
> ## Package Sets
> 
> There are currently over 30,000 packages in the archive, it's unrealistic for
> all packages to receive the same amount of QA effort for a release.
> 
> Many other distributions focus attention on the critical parts of their
> repository by identifying those packages that are required for a particular
> user-case.  For example, Arch Linux limits their efforts to a specific
> repository (called "main").  Ubuntu identifies various seeds for specific
> use-cases which determines their maintained packages; other packages outside
> these sets do not receive security updates.
> 
> Guix is both a package manager that can be hosted on other Linux distributions,
> and a Linux distribution.  Limiting the range of packages that receive attention
> is consequently more complicated. Guix already has manifests to track which
> packages are used by [Guix System's installer](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm)
> , so this proposal extends that concept.
> 
> For this proposal Guix would identify key package sets which would receive the
> most attention for QA'ing a release.
> 
> The package sets would be:
> 
> * minimal: packages required to boot and install a minimal Guix or Guix System
> install.  This would include the guix daemon, kernels, boot loaders,
> file-systems and minimal utilities.
> * standard: packages that create a core installation for all other uses.
> * desktop: provides the packages necessary for a desktop.  This would include
> things like X11/Wayland, desktop environments, key applications and themes.
> * server: provides packages and services for a server.  This would include
> standard server packages and services.
> * hosted: provides packages and services which are necessary in hosted usage.
> 
> Guix would still make all packages and services part of a release (the entire
> archive), but only those in the `package sets` could block a release due to a
> significant bug.  The goal would be for this to be as small a set of packages
> as reasonably possible.  It would mean that developers could focus on the
> critical packages and services during a release.  As an example, this would
> mean that a major issue in the Linux kernel could block a release, but not an
> issue in a game.
> 
> 
> ## Platforms and Architecture tiers
> 
> Guix is built and maintained on multiple different architectures, and two
> kernels (Linux, GNU Hurd).  As the goal of the project is to maximise user
> freedom this variety is significant and is a key motivator for developers.
> 
> However, with limited resources (developer and CI) we want to make it as
> efficient as possible to create a release.  The more toil involved in a release
> the less likely developers are to work on it.
> 
> The [2025 Guix User Survey](https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-2/)
> showed that 98% of users were on x86_64 and 19% on AArch64.  Consequently, the
> proposal is the following tiers:
> 
> - Primary architectures:
>    - Architectures: x86_64, AArch64
>    - Kernel: Linux
>    - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>      specific must work to be included in the archive.
>    - Package status: package updates should build for this architecture.  If a
>      package update is broken it must not be pushed to users (e.g. master).
>    - Security: all packages that are maintained upstream receive updates
> 
> - Alternative architectures
>    - Architectures: all others
>    - Kernel: Linux, Hurd
>    - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>      specific may build
>    - Package status: package updates should work for this architecture.
>      Updates that do not build for this architecure, but do build for a primary
>      architecture may be pushed to users.
>    - Security: no commitment to providing security updates for this architecture.
> 
> Packages or services that do not build for the Primary architectures as part of
> a release would be removed from the archive using Guix's deprecation policy.
> 
> 
> ## Release artifacts
> 
> Using the primary architecture tier and the package sets would involve creating
> the following release artifacts:
> 
> - GNU Guix System ISO image
> - GNU Guix System QCOW2 image
> - GNU Guix installer
> 
> Again in an effort to reduce developer toil, additional release artifacts could
> be created but would not be part of the formal release testing and errors would
> not block a release.
> 
> 
> ## Release team and project
> 
> A regular release cycle should galvanise all Guix developers to work on our
> releases.  But, to ensure there are sufficient people involved a call will be
> put out to create a specific release team for each release project.  We would
> expect the final release team to be around four-six members. The release team
> will work together to fix issues and test the various release artifacts. The
> expectation is that the release projects will be as short as possible, around
> a 12 week commitment with each team member having a few hours a week to take
> part.
> 
> To manage the release it's proposed that each release will have a Release Manager
> role. The role of the Release Manager is to:
> 
> - co-ordinate the release project
> - communicate with the release team and wider developers status and blockers
> - arbitrate changes to release blocking bugs, package sets and release
>    artifacts
> - influence and assist teams to resolve problems
> - define the release artifacts and create them
> - encourage and excite **everyone to create and test the release**
> 
> The Release Management role is likely to require the most effort, so it will
> be rotated and consist of two people from the release team.  For each release
> there would be a primary person and a secondary person in the role.  The
> primary person is new to the role.  The secondary person has previously done it
> and is mentoring the new person.  The impact of this is that each new release
> manager is agreeing to take responsibility during two release cycles.
> This system is modelled on the [Nix release management](https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt/nix-release-mgmt.md)
> approach.
> 
> One of the release team will take on the role of Release Advocate [^6].  They
> will take responsibility for preparing the release announcement and
> coordinating the creation of content to promote the new release (e.g. web site)
> This role can be done by any member of the Guix community who has sufficient
> interest.
> 
> The final release team is:
> 
> - a new Release Manager
> - a returning Release Manager
> - up to 4 other members, one of whom acts as the Release Advocate
> 
> The Release Managers of each release will create and communicate a release
> project plan setting out the stages and dates for each stage.  To try and
> galvanise the Guix development team to focus on the release it's envisioned
> that a release project will be about 12 weeks. See Appendix 1: Release Project
> Time-line for an example.
> 
> In order to improve knowledge transfer and reduce the toil of doing releases
> the Release Managers for a release will document the release process.  There is
> inspiration for this in [NixOS's release wiki](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Home.html)
> and we already have detailed [release documentation](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
> .
> 
> 
> # Cost of Reverting
> 
> If regular releases were not successful then the project would switch back to
> irregular releases.  There would be no impact for exiting users as they will
> be tracking the rolling release's master branch.
> 
> If the project is able to successfully undertake regular releases then over
> time it may be possible to undertake full releases every six months or some
> other release cadence.
> 
> 
> # Drawbacks and open issues
> 
> There's no particular drawback to attempting regular release.  It should be
> noted that the project is entirely dependent on volunteers so it may be that
> contributors don't have enough time available to achieve regular releases.  If
> that's the case we would revert back to irregular releases.
> 
> There are various improvements that could be made to this process over time,
> but no known issues.
> 
> 
> # Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line
> 
> To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
> The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
> weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.
> 
> The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
> 
> | Week of Project | Event |
> | --- | --- |
> | -5 | Nominate a release team |
> | -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
> | 01 | Release project start |
> | 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
> | 05 | Package set finalisation |
> | 06 | Initial testing |
> | 08 | Updates freeze |
> | 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
> | 08 | Ungraft master branch |
> | 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
> | 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
> | 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
> | 10 | Release candidate |
> | 12 | Final release |
> | 13 | Staging merged to master |
> | 14 | Release retrospective |
> | 15+| Relax - it's done! |
> 
> ### 1. Nominate a release team
> Nominate a release team with two Release Managers (1 is the previous RM), and
> up to 4 other people who will work on the release. Put out a call for a Release
> Advocate who can be anyone in the Guix community who's willing.
> 
> ### 2. Notify teams of upcoming release
> Make sure all teams are aware of the upcoming release.  This gives them 4 weeks
> to undertake any large transitions or major changes.
> 
> ### 3. Release project start
> Start the project with weekly updates to guix-dev and regular meetings of the
> release team.  Encourage participation in testing and identifying bugs from
> the community.
> 
> ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.
> 
> Debian defines a transition as one where a change in one package causes changes
> in another, the most common being a library.  This isn't suitable for Guix since
> any change in an input causes a change in another package.  Nonetheless, any
> change that alters a significant number of packages should be carefully
> considered and updates that cause other packages to break should be rejected.
> 
> No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
> Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be altered.
> 
> ### 5. Package set finalisation
> Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
> inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.
> 
> ### 6. Initial testing
> An initial testing sprint to look at packages, services, install media and
> upgrade testing. This should identify:
> 
> * packages or services that may need to be removed because they fail on a
>    primary architecture
> * packages and services in the package sets install and can be used
> * installation artifacts can be created and used
> * example system definitions can be used
> * system upgrades
> 
> A build failure of a package or service will result in it being identified for
> removal.  A build failure of a package or service that's in a package set will
> be marked as a blocker for the release.
> 
> ### 7. Updates freeze
> Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
> blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.
> 
> ### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> branch slows down from this week.
> 
> This concept comes from the Nix project where they flow big changes into a
> staging branch while they do release stabilisation to prevent big flows of
> breaking changes into master which broke one of their releases [^7].
> 
> Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
> minor package upgrades.
> 
> ### 9. Ungraft master branch
> Guix master is ungrafted to minimise the difference with users of the release
> initial 'guix pull' experience.
> 
> ### 10. Bugs and documentation focus
> The master branch should be quiet at this point as everyone should focus on
> testing and resolving any bugs.  New documentation can also be done.
> 
> ### 11. Branch and tag release branch
> The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.
> 
> * master branch: security only.
> * release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.
> 
> Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
> changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
> release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.
> 
> ### 12. Testing and Hard Freeze
> RC bugs and issues should be solved for the release branch.
> 
> Only changes that will fix a non-building package, or a bug in a package are
> allowed.  Ideally avoid new upstream versions, but it's acceptable to use a new
> minor upstream version to solve a bug.
> 
> Any non-building packages are removed.
> 
> ### 13. Release candidate
> Release artifacts are created for the release candidate.  There's a final 2
> weeks of testing with these artifacts.  If there are no release blocking bugs
> discovered then the releas uses these artifacts.  If bugs are found/fixed then
> release artifacts are regenerated as needed.
> 
> ### 14. Final release
> Final release is announced and new release artifacts are published.
> 
> ### 15. Staging merged to master
> If there were any breaking changes placed onto the `staging` branch then these
> can be merged into the `master` branch at this point.  The master branch then
> continues as normal.
> 
> ### 16. Release retrospective
> A retrospective is undertaken by the release team to understand how the release
> process can be improved to make it more reliable for users and easier/efficient
> for developers.
> 
> ### 17. Relax!
> The release has been cut, everyone is now excited, and hopefully all is well.
> Take some time off from release work!  There's some time built-in here to
> relax and get back to other hacking before it's time to start again with the
> next release.
> 
> ---
> 
> [^1]: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2022/gnu-guix-1.4.0-released/
> 
> [^2]: Examples of distributions that have cadences for different users and screnarios
>        are Nix's stable branch, OpenSUSE's SlowRoll branch and Ubuntu's LTS
>        (Long Term Support) releases.
> 
> [^3]: the aspect of creating news and excitement for casual users is well-known
>        in the FOSS community. An example from
>        [GNOME's earlier days](https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-June/msg00041.html).
> 
> [^4]: GuixDays 2025 release discussion brought up examples of Guix not being
>        used to teach users because the initial pull was so slow that the
>        teaching session would have completed before 'guix pull' would finish.
>        We know guix pull being slow was identified by users as a challenge.
> 
> [^5]: OpenSuse has a [SlowRoll branch](https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Slowroll)
>        where they release a smaller set of package updates on a monthly basis.
>        This is an interesting innovation as it allows users to still benefit from
>        a rolling release but at a slower rate of change (fewer regressions).
>        They are also not dropping too far behind the rolling release, so there's
>        not as much maintenance for OpenSUSE developers dealing with an out of
>        date release branch and having to backport software.
> 
> [^6]: Nix has the concept of a [Release Editor](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Release-Editors.html)
>        who is responsible for improving the legibility of the release notes.  Our
>        version extends the idea to make sure other artifacts and activities that
>        promote the release happen.
> 
> [^7]: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0085-nixos-release-stablization.md
>
  

Hello Ekaitz,

Am Sat, May 10, 2025 at 12:59:32AM +0200 schrieb Ekaitz Zarraga:
> Steve, you asked for my thoughts, and here they are: probably not what you
> expected (:

thanks for your contribution, which brings up some interesting thoughts;
they sound provocative, but I find it useful to step out of the box and
ask the question: "do we need releases at all?". (Which goes a little
bit beyond what you actually suggested.) And one possible outcome of our
GCDs is that in the end, we decide the problem they try to solve is not
really a problem, but the GCD process has allowed us to come to this
joint conclusion and thus to move forward as a project.

Indeed if we have lived without releases for a long time, it is because
the rolling model makes them less pressing: As long as one can install
any Guix version at all, one can do a "guix pull" afterwards and be
up to date.

An automatic release process would solve some of the problems that
motivated this proposal: Debian could package the latest release no matter
how it was obtained; "guix pull" would start from a point closer to the
current master branch; and so on.

What is added by a manual release process, in my opinion, is quality
control. While the master branch is supposed to be in perfect shape all
the time, it actually is not:
- Sometimes there are breaking changes with problems only discovered
  afterwards. For instance, the move to a non-privileged daemon caused
  problems which are being solved now. Hopefully such a breaking change
  would not make it into a release due to the freezing period.
- Ungrafting is a big issue that would be done during a release, and
  the past has shown that it cannot be done completely automatically
  (sometimes things break when ungrafting). Currently on a high-speed
  Internet line it may take more time to graft the packages than to
  download them.
- Recently when updating a package and checking which dependent packages
  it would break, I noticed that several of them (!) had not been built
  for years (!), and nobody had taken the time to fix or remove them.
  Filing removal requests resulted in them being fixed or removed, and
  a better quality of Guix (in a very small niche) and easier
  maintenance: now doing a "guix build -P 1 this-package" actually tells
  whether this-package update breaks anything or not.

These are things we *could* do any time, but which are probably not much
fun, and so they are not done. Crafting manual releases means we *must*
address such problems and face our quality issues.

This could also be a first step towards an additional stable branch,
which people have called for, on which security updates and (to be
discussed) limited package updates could be made. This is outside the
scope of this GCD, but I think that quality based releases on a certain
schedule are a prerequisite.

Clearly we could not (or would not like to) do security updates on a
branch as old as our 1.4 release; and it would also not work in your
alternative model in which, if I understand it correctly, releases would
be made essentially by putting a 3 digit version number periodically on
git commits, which would essentially be a purely rolling model.

Andreas
  

Hi Vagrant,

On  9 May, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> On 2025-05-09, Steve George wrote:
> > It's been ~2.5 years since the last Guix release, which led me to
> > think we should do another one! Initially, I was just going to see if
> > anyone wanted to create a release project. But, before I knew it I was
> > writing a GCD! ...
> 
> Thanks for nudging this forward! :)
(...) 

Thanks for your active interest and commenting!

(...)
> > - Debian: Every 2 years (not time fixed), with about six months of package
> > updates freeze before the release while bugs are ironed out.
> 
> Maybe more like 4 or 5 months, but who's counting? :)
> 
> Notably, Debian has time based freezes, and releases "quando paratus
> est" ... e.g. when it is ready (e.g. no major blockers to release).
> 
> I think this is a more realistic and honest model for a volunteer
> project than trying to make a time-based "release", as you can predict
> or decree when you are going to start the process, but you cannot
> reliably predict when you will finish.
(...)

I researched various other distributions release strategies to make sure my recollections were up to date (linked to my codeberg account). Echoing your comment here I noticed that Fedora has come up with an interesting element - they are still time-based but they have "buffer weeks with early and later release targets" [0]

They run a 10 week release project (they have full-time devs), and then have four possible release weeks, so it gives them quite a nice landing zone. The still have the benefits of a consistent release cadence, but have some of the time to do "no major blockers to release". It's easy to see in their current step-by-step plan:

https://fedorapeople.org/groups/schedule/f-43/f-43-key-tasks.html

Conceptually, do you think adding something that provides 3-4 landing zone weeks would be useful? 


> > Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
> > desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
> > why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.
> ...
> > This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.
> >
> > To move onto this cycle the first release would be a little later: aiming for
> > the **November of 2025**, with a short cycle to release in May 2026.
> 
> For what it is worth, May would be awful timing for getting guix into
> Debian stable releases, which tend to approach a hard freeze around that
> time of year, so Debian stable will always end up effectively (at least)
> one release behind... but you cannot please everybody. :/
> 
> A yearly release cycle would at least allow Debian to provide backports
> of guix more reliably, at least...
> 
> Of course, we are about to see the second Debian release since the
> release of guix 1.4.0, so this proposal would still be a huge
> improvement!
(...)

I think here you're +1 on an annual release as it would allow for backports.

In terms of the Debian freeze is moving to June for Guix any better/worse, (Rutherther suggested it), or it's just anything in $SPRING?

I guess there will always be a bit of a log-jam if the whole of the community is somewhat aligning. In this case Debian is both a distribution (like Guix) aligning on a $SPRING release, and a downstream that Guix is trying to get into.

  {upstream projects} -> {guix/fedora/ubuntu/debian} -> {downstream into Debian}


> > ## Package Sets
> ...
> > Guix is both a package manager that can be hosted on other Linux distributions,
> > and a Linux distribution.  Limiting the range of packages that receive attention
> > is consequently more complicated. Guix already has manifests to track which
> > packages are used by [Guix System's installer](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm)
> > , so this proposal extends that concept.
> >
> > For this proposal Guix would identify key package sets which would receive the
> > most attention for QA'ing a release.
> >
> > The package sets would be:
> >
> > * minimal: packages required to boot and install a minimal Guix or Guix System
> > install.  This would include the guix daemon, kernels, boot loaders,
> > file-systems and minimal utilities.
> 
> This seems a reasonable broad-strokes starting point, nice!
> 
> 
> > * standard: packages that create a core installation for all other
> > uses.
> 
> I fail to see a distinction between minimal and standard, perhaps due to
> "core installation", so this perhaps could use a bit more elaboration.
> 

The package sets are a starting point, we don't have them, so the specific detail could change as this is worked through.

This set-up is a pared-back version of what we worked with in Ubuntu [1]. AFAIK this concept comes from Debian (seeds).

We had a minimal 'package set' that was used for all variants (e.g. used in the desktop and server install). Then `standard` was the next block-up with the minimum core utils for a non-X install.

Maybe having both is over-complicated for a first pass.


> > * desktop: provides the packages necessary for a desktop.  This would include
> > things like X11/Wayland, desktop environments, key applications and themes.
> 
> It seems like all desktop environments is awfully broad, as there are
> some unusual or niche desktop environments in Guix, although Guix users
> maybe also tend to fill certain niches more than the general
> population. Still, I suspect this should maybe be narrowed down to a
> more specific set...

Agreed.

My perspective on 'package sets' is that they should be kept as small as reasonably possible, because once something is in then it's difficult to remove it since users 'workflow [2] will come to rely on it. Of course, what is "reasonable" is up for debate within the group, and it's part of each Release Teams project to consider it.

We currently have kind of defacto selection of desktops in:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm

To avoid derailing the conversation around the GCD I would defer to the Release Project to discuss the precise definitions of the `package sets`.


> 
> > * server: provides packages and services for a server.  This would include
> > standard server packages and services.
> 
> What are "standard server packages and services" ?
> 

From the Guix User Survey we know that roughly a third of Guix System users use it as a server [3]. But, our teams are actually set-up by file-kinda-build-system-type. So there's a dissonance between users usage-scenarios and our internal organisation. Package sets might allow us to align these two since we can have teams that are sponsoring (using Greg's terminology) different packages in the package set.

As we don't have popcon I don't know what's popular with users, but I was thinking of things like Web server, Mail, etc


>
> > * hosted: provides packages and services which are necessary in hosted usage.
> 
> What are these?
(...)

This is the weakest one as I have no clue. I was thinking that we need to reflect a unique part of Guix which is that we are not just a GNU/Linux distribution but also a hosted (foreign) package manager. If there are packages that are required/popular when using in a hosted set-up, then they would be in this package set.

You've caught me trying to slide it past, because I couldn't actually think of any at the time heh :-)


(...) 
> > ## Release artifacts
> >
> > Using the primary architecture tier and the package sets would involve creating
> > the following release artifacts:
> >
> > - GNU Guix System ISO image
> > - GNU Guix System QCOW2 image
> > - GNU Guix installer
> >
> > Again in an effort to reduce developer toil, additional release artifacts could
> > be created but would not be part of the formal release testing and errors would
> > not block a release.
> 
> Do we currently have all these for x86_64-linux and aarch64-linux, the
> two proposed primary architectures?
> 

According to https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/ we have:

- GNU Guix System ISO image -> x86_64 (no AArch64)
- GNU Guix System QCOW2 image -> x86_64 (no AArch64)
- GNU Guix 1.4.0 installer (called binary on that page) ->  x86_64 & aarch64


> > # Drawbacks and open issues
> >
> > There's no particular drawback to attempting regular release.  It should be
> > noted that the project is entirely dependent on volunteers so it may be that
> > contributors don't have enough time available to achieve regular releases.  If
> > that's the case we would revert back to irregular releases.
> >
> > There are various improvements that could be made to this process over time,
> > but no known issues.
> 
> I think someone already mentioned freezing master should be noted as a
> drawback. I would, in a weird way, second that, despite thinking it is
> actually a feature. :)
>

Yes, I will add some text hear about the freeze window. In my mind it's a necessary element if we want releases, there's no free lunch.


> > # Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line
> >
> > To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
> > The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
> > weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.
> 
> Ambitious, but may as well aim high!
> 
(...)

Yes, and to be explicit there is a trade-off in what we can expect in _quality_ vs developer morale.

On the one side, asking a volunteer project to work on a release for a long time is likely to lead to a loss of motivation. I'm sure we can all think of release projects that have been "toil" and bad for morale. So, keeping it to a reasonably short, focused and high energy project seems the best way to have a positive result.

On the other side quality takes time. We're trying to release a Linux distribution that works on (a) a range of hardware (b) other distributions as a hosted package manager) (c) for different use-cases such as desktop and server, (c) provides delcarative services for configuring everything - this is a really large amount of work. 

So bearing that all in mind, having a reasonably tight project and trying to minimise the testing scenarios/areas of concern seems the right trade-off.


> > The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
> >
> > | Week of Project | Event |
> > | --- | --- |
> > | -5 | Nominate a release team |
> > | -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
> > | 01 | Release project start |
> > | 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
> > | 05 | Package set finalisation |
> > | 06 | Initial testing |
> > | 08 | Updates freeze |
> > | 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
> > | 08 | Ungraft master branch |
> > | 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
> > | 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
> > | 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
> > | 10 | Release candidate |
> > | 12 | Final release |
> > | 13 | Staging merged to master |
> > | 14 | Release retrospective |
> > | 15+| Relax - it's done! |
> 
> The weeks listed here are -5 indexed, but are described as a 1 indexed
> bulleted list, it would be nice to keep them using the same indexing!

Ah, so it was actually a time-table showing the weeks of the project plan.

And the second one (below) is a numbered list of the steps. I will change it to remove the numbers, and I'll put the weeks in brackets.


>
> > ### 1. Nominate a release team
> (a.k.a. ### -5.)
> 
> > ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> > No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> > (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.
> ...
> > No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
> > Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be altered.
> >
> > ### 5. Package set finalisation
> > Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
> > inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.
> 
> It seems like you would need to clarify the toolchain package set the
> week prior.
>

Yes, agreed it's wrong. I'll adjust it to a bit earlier. We have 5 weeks before the release starts to bike-shed the package sets.


> > ### 7. Updates freeze
> > Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
> > blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.
> 
> Yay! This should also give the build farms a chance to "catch up" with
> builds.
> 

Also AIUI we have world-rebuild with the ungraft. This is not my area of competence so I'm hoping Andreas, Ludo, Efraim and others will comment about this area if the discussion develops ... 

>
> > ### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> > To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> > sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> > branch slows down from this week.
> ...
> > Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
> > minor package upgrades.
> 
> If they are minor package upgrades, do you even need a team branch?
> 

No, and generally the length of the freeze and where things go is something we need to debate. I want to avoid a big discussion about our team branches, but I think we all know there are concerns. 


> > ### 11. Branch and tag release branch
> > The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.
> >
> > * master branch: security only.
> > * release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.
> >
> > Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
> > changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
> > release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.
> 
> Spell out "RC" at least once in the document, presumably "Release
> Critical"?

Yes, Release Critical.

I had this in the Release team responsibilities: "communicate with the release team and wider developers status and blockers"

I'll finesse the wording.


> 
> > ### 13. Release candidate
> > Release artifacts are created for the release candidate.  There's a final 2
> > weeks of testing with these artifacts.
> 
> Not sure how you cram two weeks into week 13! (or... is that week 10?)
> :)
>

Heh! Using my terrible weeks it would be week 10 "release candidate", and then "final release" is week 12.


> > If there are no release blocking bugs discovered then the releas uses
>                                                          ^^ release ^^
> > these artifacts.  If bugs are found/fixed then release artifacts are
> > regenerated as needed.

Thanks!

>
> As a downstream packager of Guix for Debian, I would appreciate
> (pre)release candidates be included earlier in the process somehow.
> 
> Maybe even in sync with a weekly cadence in line with this release
> process?
> 
> I usually do find bugs in the process of packaging Guix for Debian, and
> it would be nice to more easily catch those earlier.
(...)

I don't know how complex it would be to do that, but it makes sense. In week 6 we do "initial testing" which means we have to generate the release artifacts, so assuming it's not too complicated we could then do a weekly cadence from there.

> > ### 14. Final release
> > Final release is announced and new release artifacts are published.
> 
> Yay!
> 
> 
> Thanks again, really glad to see some good thoughts and energy go into
> this!

Your welcome, look forward to follow-up comments on the topics above =-)

Steve / Futurile

[0] https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/releases/
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SeedManagement
[2] https://xkcd.com/1172/
[3] https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-2/
  

Hi Steve

Thanks for the effort you put into this, I just wanted to add my
thoughts when reading it...

> Hi all,
>
> It's been ~2.5 years since the last Guix release, which led me to think we should do another one! Initially, I was just going to see if anyone wanted to create a release project. But, before I knew it I was writing a GCD! ...
>
> Below you'll find a proposal for moving to a regular release cycle.
>
> Thanks to Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès and Efraim Flashner for their initial comments and insights. They've agreed to sponsor it - which means they agree with the general direction (but not necessarily with all aspects), and will help to 'garden' the discussion to move us towards a consensus on whether it's a good proposal.
>
> This is a **draft** submission so I look forward to your consideration of it, thoughts and comments.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve / Futurile
> title: Regular and efficient releases
> id: 005
> status: draft
> discussion: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/78332
> authors: Steve George
> sponsors: Andreas Enge, Ludovic Courtès, Efraim Flashner
> date: <date when the discussion period starts>
> SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-or-later
> ---
>
> # Summary
>
> Guix doesn't have regular release cycle which has led to infrequent new
> releases. Sporadic releases are detrimental for our users, contributors and
> the project.  This GCD proposes we implement an annual release cadence and
> simplify the release process to make releases easier.
>
> The project currently releases new versions of Guix on an ad hoc frequency.
> The 1.4.0 release happened in December 2022 [^1], which is almost 2.5 years
> ago, at the time of writing.
>
> The weaknesses in this release strategy are:
>
> 1. No clarity on when the next Guix release is.
> 2. Releases are complex and toil for developers.
> 3. Rolling updates aren't suitable for all users.
>
> This GCD proposes the following combined solution:
>
> 1. Regular releases: switch to a time-based release of Guix every year.
> 2. Efficient releases: use *package sets* and *supported architectures* to
> reduce the scope of work required to create a Guix release.
>
> The benefits will be:
>
> 1. New installations of Guix will be better because installation media and
>    manuals will be up to date, and the initial 'guix pull' will be faster.
> 2. Package installation will improve for all users.  Packages will be ungrafted
>    during each release cycle.
> 3. Package quality will improve for all users, because regular releases will
>    provide a cadence for focusing on our quality.
> 4. A regular cadence for promoting the project to potential users.  Helping us
>    to inform more people about the benefits of using GNU Guix!
> 5. A regular release cycle is a rallying point for our contributors giving them a
>    consistent calendar of when to focus on releases versus other hacking.
>
> Adding a slower-moving branch akin to Nix's stable could be an eventual goal as
> it would increase Guix's suitability for some users and use-cases [^2].  However,
> this GCD only sets out to implement regular releases which is a substantial
> change that would be a big improvement for our users.
>
>
> # Motivation
>
> Releases are important for any Free Software project because they update the
> user experience and are a focal point for excitement [^3].  Regular releases
> help us to improve the quality of our software by bringing focus, and
> exercising regular usage scenarios (e.g. testing the installer).
>
> The majority of distributions follow time-based releases, six months is a
> common cycle time.  For further comparison see the research on the
> [release strategies of distributions] (https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt)
> . A summary is:
>
> - NixOS: releases every six months (May/November), both rolling release and
> slower stable branch.
> - OpenSUSE: rolling release, slow-roll release and fixed releases.
> - Ubuntu: every six months, with 9 months maintenance. LTS releases every
> 2 years.
> - Debian: Every 2 years (not time fixed), with about six months of package
> updates freeze before the release while bugs are ironed out.
>
> As a rolling release Guix immediately provides the latest improvements to
> users.  Consequently, it could be argued that releases are unnecessary.
> However, they provide a focal point for the project to undertake additional
> testing and stabilisation across the repository.  They also ensure we update
> installation media, documentation, themes and web site.
>
> A specific issue caused by irregular releases is that new users/installs face a
> significant first "guix pull". This provides a poor initial user experience,
> and in some cases may even deter users [^4]. Additionally, it requires the
> project to keep old substitutes on our servers.
>
> Regular releases are also good for casual users because they provide an
> opportunity for us to promote new features and improvements.  For prospective
> users promotional activity about the release means they are more likely to hear
> about capabilities that will attract them to experiment with Guix.
>
> Many desktop distributions release every six months to align with the major
> desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) who release two or three times a year. This is
> why Nix (May/November) and Ubuntu (April/October) align their releases.
>
> Since Guix is used [extensively as a desktop] (https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/)
> it would make sense to align with these upstream releases.  However, given that
> Guix is a volunteer project that doesn't have the practise of releasing it's
> unrealistic to move to two releases a year. Something along these lines could
> be a future goal [^5].
>
> This GCD proposes an annual release cycle, with releases **in May**.
>
> To move onto this cycle the first release would be a little later: aiming for
> the **November of 2025**, with a short cycle to release in May 2026.
>
>
> ## Package Sets
>
> There are currently over 30,000 packages in the archive, it's unrealistic for
> all packages to receive the same amount of QA effort for a release.
>
> Many other distributions focus attention on the critical parts of their
> repository by identifying those packages that are required for a particular
> user-case.  For example, Arch Linux limits their efforts to a specific
> repository (called "main").  Ubuntu identifies various seeds for specific
> use-cases which determines their maintained packages; other packages outside
> these sets do not receive security updates.
>
> Guix is both a package manager that can be hosted on other Linux distributions,
> and a Linux distribution.  Limiting the range of packages that receive attention
> is consequently more complicated. Guix already has manifests to track which
> packages are used by [Guix System's installer](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/etc/manifests/release.scm)
> , so this proposal extends that concept.
>
> For this proposal Guix would identify key package sets which would receive the
> most attention for QA'ing a release.
>
> The package sets would be:
>
> * minimal: packages required to boot and install a minimal Guix or Guix System
> install.  This would include the guix daemon, kernels, boot loaders,
> file-systems and minimal utilities.
> * standard: packages that create a core installation for all other uses.
> * desktop: provides the packages necessary for a desktop.  This would include
> things like X11/Wayland, desktop environments, key applications and themes.
> * server: provides packages and services for a server.  This would include
> standard server packages and services.
> * hosted: provides packages and services which are necessary in hosted usage.
>
> Guix would still make all packages and services part of a release (the entire
> archive), but only those in the `package sets` could block a release due to a
> significant bug.  The goal would be for this to be as small a set of packages
> as reasonably possible.  It would mean that developers could focus on the
> critical packages and services during a release.  As an example, this would
> mean that a major issue in the Linux kernel could block a release, but not an
> issue in a game.
>
>
> ## Platforms and Architecture tiers
>
> Guix is built and maintained on multiple different architectures, and two
> kernels (Linux, GNU Hurd).  As the goal of the project is to maximise user
> freedom this variety is significant and is a key motivator for developers.
>
> However, with limited resources (developer and CI) we want to make it as
> efficient as possible to create a release.  The more toil involved in a release
> the less likely developers are to work on it.
>
> The [2025 Guix User Survey](https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-2/)
> showed that 98% of users were on x86_64 and 19% on AArch64.  Consequently, the
> proposal is the following tiers:
>
> - Primary architectures:
>   - Architectures: x86_64, AArch64
>   - Kernel: Linux
>   - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>     specific must work to be included in the archive.
>   - Package status: package updates should build for this architecture.  If a
>     package update is broken it must not be pushed to users (e.g. master).
>   - Security: all packages that are maintained upstream receive updates
>
> - Alternative architectures
>   - Architectures: all others
>   - Kernel: Linux, Hurd
>   - Coverage: all packages and services that are not explicitly platform
>     specific may build
>   - Package status: package updates should work for this architecture.
>     Updates that do not build for this architecure, but do build for a primary
>     architecture may be pushed to users.
>   - Security: no commitment to providing security updates for this architecture.
>
> Packages or services that do not build for the Primary architectures as part of
> a release would be removed from the archive using Guix's deprecation policy.
>
>
> ## Release artifacts
>
> Using the primary architecture tier and the package sets would involve creating
> the following release artifacts:
>
> - GNU Guix System ISO image
> - GNU Guix System QCOW2 image
> - GNU Guix installer
>
> Again in an effort to reduce developer toil, additional release artifacts could
> be created but would not be part of the formal release testing and errors would
> not block a release.
>
>
> ## Release team and project
>
> A regular release cycle should galvanise all Guix developers to work on our
> releases.  But, to ensure there are sufficient people involved a call will be
> put out to create a specific release team for each release project.  We would
> expect the final release team to be around four-six members. The release team
> will work together to fix issues and test the various release artifacts. The
> expectation is that the release projects will be as short as possible, around
> a 12 week commitment with each team member having a few hours a week to take
> part.
>
> To manage the release it's proposed that each release will have a Release Manager
> role. The role of the Release Manager is to: 
>
> - co-ordinate the release project
> - communicate with the release team and wider developers status and blockers
> - arbitrate changes to release blocking bugs, package sets and release
>   artifacts
> - influence and assist teams to resolve problems
> - define the release artifacts and create them
> - encourage and excite **everyone to create and test the release**
>
> The Release Management role is likely to require the most effort, so it will
> be rotated and consist of two people from the release team.  For each release
> there would be a primary person and a secondary person in the role.  The
> primary person is new to the role.  The secondary person has previously done it
> and is mentoring the new person.  The impact of this is that each new release
> manager is agreeing to take responsibility during two release cycles.
> This system is modelled on the [Nix release management](https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-org/src/branch/master/release-mgmt/nix-release-mgmt.md)
> approach.
>
> One of the release team will take on the role of Release Advocate [^6].  They
> will take responsibility for preparing the release announcement and 
> coordinating the creation of content to promote the new release (e.g. web site)
> This role can be done by any member of the Guix community who has sufficient
> interest.
>
> The final release team is:
>
> - a new Release Manager
> - a returning Release Manager
> - up to 4 other members, one of whom acts as the Release Advocate
>
> The Release Managers of each release will create and communicate a release
> project plan setting out the stages and dates for each stage.  To try and
> galvanise the Guix development team to focus on the release it's envisioned
> that a release project will be about 12 weeks. See Appendix 1: Release Project
> Time-line for an example.
>
> In order to improve knowledge transfer and reduce the toil of doing releases
> the Release Managers for a release will document the release process.  There is
> inspiration for this in [NixOS's release wiki](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Home.html)
> and we already have detailed [release documentation](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
> .
>
>
> # Cost of Reverting
>
> If regular releases were not successful then the project would switch back to
> irregular releases.  There would be no impact for exiting users as they will
> be tracking the rolling release's master branch.
>
> If the project is able to successfully undertake regular releases then over
> time it may be possible to undertake full releases every six months or some
> other release cadence.
>
>
> # Drawbacks and open issues
>
> There's no particular drawback to attempting regular release.  It should be
> noted that the project is entirely dependent on volunteers so it may be that
> contributors don't have enough time available to achieve regular releases.  If
> that's the case we would revert back to irregular releases.
>
> There are various improvements that could be made to this process over time,
> but no known issues.
>
>
> # Appendix 1: Release Project Time-line
>
> To illustrate the major steps of a release project this is a rough time-line.
> The aim is for a 12 week active release project, with the first one using 16
> weeks in total to give teams time to prepare.
>
> The current outline builds from our current [release document](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/release.org)
>
> | Week of Project | Event |
> | --- | --- |
> | -5 | Nominate a release team |
> | -4 | Notify teams of upcoming release |
> | 01 | Release project start |
> | 04 | Toolchain and transition freeze |
> | 05 | Package set finalisation |
> | 06 | Initial testing |
> | 08 | Updates freeze |
> | 08 | Breaking changes to staging |
> | 08 | Ungraft master branch |
> | 09 | Bugs and documentation focus |
> | 09 | Branch and tag release branch |
> | 09 | Testing and hard freeze |
> | 10 | Release candidate |
> | 12 | Final release |
> | 13 | Staging merged to master |
> | 14 | Release retrospective |
> | 15+| Relax - it's done! |
>
> ### 1. Nominate a release team
> Nominate a release team with two Release Managers (1 is the previous RM), and
> up to 4 other people who will work on the release. Put out a call for a Release
> Advocate who can be anyone in the Guix community who's willing.
>
> ### 2. Notify teams of upcoming release
> Make sure all teams are aware of the upcoming release.  This gives them 4 weeks
> to undertake any large transitions or major changes.
>
> ### 3. Release project start
> Start the project with weekly updates to guix-dev and regular meetings of the
> release team.  Encourage participation in testing and identifying bugs from
> the community.
>
> ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.
>
> Debian defines a transition as one where a change in one package causes changes
> in another, the most common being a library.  This isn't suitable for Guix since
> any change in an input causes a change in another package.  Nonetheless, any
> change that alters a significant number of packages should be carefully
> considered and updates that cause other packages to break should be rejected.
>
> No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
> Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be
> altered.

Should this not be done on a separate release branch as soon as we start
with the release? There seems to be no need to freeze master as soon as
we branch off a release branch. Or did I understand something wrong?
>
> ### 5. Package set finalisation
> Specify the package sets for this release.  Identify all packages and their
> inputs so that a full manifest for the release is created.
>
> ### 6. Initial testing
> An initial testing sprint to look at packages, services, install media and
> upgrade testing. This should identify:
>
> * packages or services that may need to be removed because they fail on a
>   primary architecture
> * packages and services in the package sets install and can be used
> * installation artifacts can be created and used
> * example system definitions can be used
> * system upgrades
>
> A build failure of a package or service will result in it being identified for
> removal.  A build failure of a package or service that's in a package set will
> be marked as a blocker for the release.
>
> ### 7. Updates freeze
> Major package updates are frozen on 'master' as the focus is on fixing any
> blocking packages.  Security updates still go to 'master'.
>
> ### 8. Breaking changes to staging
> To avoid a period of time where teams can't commit breaking changes, these are
> sent to a new 'staging' branch, rather than directly to master.  The master
> branch slows down from this week.
>
> This concept comes from the Nix project where they flow big changes into a
> staging branch while they do release stabilisation to prevent big flows of
> breaking changes into master which broke one of their releases [^7].
>
> Team branches can still be folded into the release branch as long as changes are
> minor package upgrades.
>
> ### 9. Ungraft master branch
> Guix master is ungrafted to minimise the difference with users of the release
> initial 'guix pull' experience.
>
> ### 10. Bugs and documentation focus
> The master branch should be quiet at this point as everyone should focus on
> testing and resolving any bugs.  New documentation can also be done.
>
> ### 11. Branch and tag release branch
> The master branch is tagged and a new release branch is created.
>
> * master branch: security only.
> * release branch: security updates as normal. Only RC blocking bugs.
>
> Only security updates go to the master branch from week 9->13.  All other
> changes stay in a team branch or go to the `staging` branch. The focus on the
> release branch is to stabilise so only RC bugs should be pushed.
>
> ### 12. Testing and Hard Freeze
> RC bugs and issues should be solved for the release branch.
>
> Only changes that will fix a non-building package, or a bug in a package are
> allowed.  Ideally avoid new upstream versions, but it's acceptable to use a new
> minor upstream version to solve a bug.
>
> Any non-building packages are removed.
>
> ### 13. Release candidate
> Release artifacts are created for the release candidate.  There's a final 2
> weeks of testing with these artifacts.  If there are no release blocking bugs
> discovered then the releas uses these artifacts.  If bugs are found/fixed then
> release artifacts are regenerated as needed.
>
> ### 14. Final release
> Final release is announced and new release artifacts are published.
>
> ### 15. Staging merged to master
> If there were any breaking changes placed onto the `staging` branch then these
> can be merged into the `master` branch at this point.  The master branch then
> continues as normal.
>
> ### 16. Release retrospective
> A retrospective is undertaken by the release team to understand how the release
> process can be improved to make it more reliable for users and easier/efficient
> for developers.
>
> ### 17. Relax!
> The release has been cut, everyone is now excited, and hopefully all is well.
> Take some time off from release work!  There's some time built-in here to
> relax and get back to other hacking before it's time to start again with the
> next release.
>
> ---
>
> [^1]: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2022/gnu-guix-1.4.0-released/
>
> [^2]: Examples of distributions that have cadences for different users and screnarios
>       are Nix's stable branch, OpenSUSE's SlowRoll branch and Ubuntu's LTS
>       (Long Term Support) releases.
>
> [^3]: the aspect of creating news and excitement for casual users is well-known
>       in the FOSS community. An example from 
>       [GNOME's earlier days](https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-June/msg00041.html).
>
> [^4]: GuixDays 2025 release discussion brought up examples of Guix not being
>       used to teach users because the initial pull was so slow that the
>       teaching session would have completed before 'guix pull' would finish.
>       We know guix pull being slow was identified by users as a challenge.
>
> [^5]: OpenSuse has a [SlowRoll branch](https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Slowroll)
>       where they release a smaller set of package updates on a monthly basis.
>       This is an interesting innovation as it allows users to still benefit from
>       a rolling release but at a slower rate of change (fewer regressions).
>       They are also not dropping too far behind the rolling release, so there's
>       not as much maintenance for OpenSUSE developers dealing with an out of
>       date release branch and having to backport software.
>
> [^6]: Nix has the concept of a [Release Editor](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Release-Editors.html)
>       who is responsible for improving the legibility of the release notes.  Our
>       version extends the idea to make sure other artifacts and activities that
>       promote the release happen.
>
> [^7]: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0085-nixos-release-stablization.md

I am missing the automation aspect a little in this GCD. As I understand
the release take so long because there is a lot of manual effort
involved in doing one. I think it is worthwhile to also work towards
more automation in preparing a release and testing it. I have by no
means a lot of insight into doing a release but my impression is that
automation could drastically improve the time to relase.

Thanks again!

Best,
Reza
  

On 2025-05-10 11:15, Andreas Enge wrote:
> Hello Ekaitz,
> 
> Am Sat, May 10, 2025 at 12:59:32AM +0200 schrieb Ekaitz Zarraga:
>> Steve, you asked for my thoughts, and here they are: probably not what you
>> expected (:
> 
> thanks for your contribution, which brings up some interesting thoughts;
> they sound provocative, but I find it useful to step out of the box and
> ask the question: "do we need releases at all?". (Which goes a little
> bit beyond what you actually suggested.) And one possible outcome of our
> GCDs is that in the end, we decide the problem they try to solve is not
> really a problem, but the GCD process has allowed us to come to this
> joint conclusion and thus to move forward as a project.
> 
> Indeed if we have lived without releases for a long time, it is because
> the rolling model makes them less pressing: As long as one can install
> any Guix version at all, one can do a "guix pull" afterwards and be
> up to date.
> 
> An automatic release process would solve some of the problems that
> motivated this proposal: Debian could package the latest release no matter
> how it was obtained; "guix pull" would start from a point closer to the
> current master branch; and so on.
> 
> What is added by a manual release process, in my opinion, is quality
> control. While the master branch is supposed to be in perfect shape all
> the time, it actually is not:
> - Sometimes there are breaking changes with problems only discovered
>    afterwards. For instance, the move to a non-privileged daemon caused
>    problems which are being solved now. Hopefully such a breaking change
>    would not make it into a release due to the freezing period.
> - Ungrafting is a big issue that would be done during a release, and
>    the past has shown that it cannot be done completely automatically
>    (sometimes things break when ungrafting). Currently on a high-speed
>    Internet line it may take more time to graft the packages than to
>    download them.
> - Recently when updating a package and checking which dependent packages
>    it would break, I noticed that several of them (!) had not been built
>    for years (!), and nobody had taken the time to fix or remove them.
>    Filing removal requests resulted in them being fixed or removed, and
>    a better quality of Guix (in a very small niche) and easier
>    maintenance: now doing a "guix build -P 1 this-package" actually tells
>    whether this-package update breaks anything or not.
> 
> These are things we *could* do any time, but which are probably not much
> fun, and so they are not done. Crafting manual releases means we *must*
> address such problems and face our quality issues.
> 
> This could also be a first step towards an additional stable branch,
> which people have called for, on which security updates and (to be
> discussed) limited package updates could be made. This is outside the
> scope of this GCD, but I think that quality based releases on a certain
> schedule are a prerequisite.
> 
> Clearly we could not (or would not like to) do security updates on a
> branch as old as our 1.4 release; and it would also not work in your
> alternative model in which, if I understand it correctly, releases would
> be made essentially by putting a 3 digit version number periodically on
> git commits, which would essentially be a purely rolling model.
> 
> Andreas
> 

So, there it goes!

You answered my question really clearly: We don't actually *need* to 
make the releases manually, but we need the stability that process gives 
us, specially for ungrafting.

My proposal was the most radical I could think about: just don't have a 
release process. Or as you put it "put a three digit version number in 
git commits". But the idea was to think about the grey, adding some 
black to the white the GCD proposed.

So, now, realistically speaking, we are not ready for total automation 
and we should make a release process. That I agree with, and we could 
use the process to try to slowly make the process lighter until it 
barely exists, which would at some point let us make releases more often 
and with lower effort.

The question now is how do we achieve that. You point the goal of the 
release process is the quality control. Now I wonder if there's any way 
to relief the release of some of that weight (or all of it), being a 
little bit more cautious during the rest of the year.

I know that makes every day less fun, but I'm thinking on how could we 
share the responsibility to make the work of those that are going to 
make the release as light as possible.

And this takes me to the actual specifics of the GCD:

I think one of the reasons we don't have a release for that long time is 
the lack of people taking care of it. The GCD has a plan about it, but 
it relies on having people involved in the process.

I'm a little bit pessimistic about how many people would get involved in 
that, or better said: I'm worried that the very same people would be the 
ones that get involved in the process over and over again.

That's why I'm trying to find a way to make everybody get involved in 
the process in their everyday work, so the actual release process is not 
that hard and makes it more likely to people to join. The way I have to 
think about it is to imagine a future when releases can be automatic, 
and think about what is preventing us from having that now.

I like the GCD, I think it's thoughtful and well organized, but it might 
lack some of that: let's see how it went and try to make it lighter and 
lighter for the future.

Maybe adding that is just a matter of publishing some 
blogpost/survey/... after the first release is done using this process 
where people share ideas on how we could implement improvements in our 
everyday lives. After that, I suppose more GCDs would be proposed: a 
long-lived stable branch, a full-automation proposal, better CI/CD 
process, proper package testing... Whatever that is so we keep the wheel 
rolling.

There's already some of that in the GCD: package sets are a very nice 
way to make sure we are specially careful with some packages, and that's 
something we can do every single day.

Does this make more sense now?

Thanks Andreas for your response,
Ekaitz
  

Hi Reza,

On 10 May, reza wrote:
> Hi Steve
> 
> Thanks for the effort you put into this, I just wanted to add my
> thoughts when reading it...
(...)

Appreciate you reading it and taking the time to send your thoughts!

(...)
> > ### 4. Toolchain and transition freeze
> > No major changes to toolchains (e.g. gcc-toolchain, rust-1.xx) or runtimes
> > (e.g. java).  There should be no changes that will cause major transitions.
> >
> > Debian defines a transition as one where a change in one package causes changes
> > in another, the most common being a library.  This isn't suitable for Guix since
> > any change in an input causes a change in another package.  Nonetheless, any
> > change that alters a significant number of packages should be carefully
> > considered and updates that cause other packages to break should be rejected.
> >
> > No alterations to the Guix daemon or modules are accepted after this point.
> > Packages and services in the 'minimal' package set should not be
> > altered.
> 
> Should this not be done on a separate release branch as soon as we start
> with the release? There seems to be no need to freeze master as soon as
> we branch off a release branch. Or did I understand something wrong?
(...)

It definitely _can_ be done that way, it wouldn't be my preference.

In my experience, if we want the whole group to focus on doing a great release then branching off as late as possible is the best option. The social signal is that "we're all focusing on creating a release now". As we know people have different motivations and priorities, if everyone isn't focused on the release, then there's a tendancy for people to keep hacking (introducing lots of changes etc) and that can make creating a release very difficult as new instability is brought into the archive.

We kind of had a version of this a few months ago when Ludo asked for volunteers to work on doing a release 


From a technical perspective, the later that we branch off from master the better since that limits the divergence between what's in the release and what package versions the user gets when they do a 'guix pull'. It's also, I think, quite difficult managing multiple branches, so I would limit the over-head as much as possible.

That all said, it's definitely possible to branch earlier and then do everything that way. In a way that's the "Debian" approach of having a "testing" branch and then moving it towards a release. So if the group wanted to try that approach ...

(...)
> I am missing the automation aspect a little in this GCD. As I understand
> the release take so long because there is a lot of manual effort
> involved in doing one. I think it is worthwhile to also work towards
> more automation in preparing a release and testing it. I have by no
> means a lot of insight into doing a release but my impression is that
> automation could drastically improve the time to relase.
(...)

The main piece of automation that limits our ability to do a release is to do with the architectures and `make dist`. See this thread from February:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2025-02/msg00184.html

The commercial distro's do have a lot of release automation that goes beyond the common tools (e.g. CA/QA/Bugtracker). At least when I was involved we had a lot of automation for automating package updates, complex hardware testing, installation testing, and various forms of upgrade testing. This short section from OpenSUSE's 'Factory development model' might give you some ideas:

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Factory_development_model#Development_Process_Overview

But, please note that the the core work of creating a release - packaging, testing packages install/work, integration between packages (services in Guix), testing the release and solving bugs - is mostly developer effort (even for RedHat or Canonical).

I personally, think we should focus on the foundations of our developer experience first and automate in that area.  Things like QA, visibility into package build/regressions, automated updates of packages. We have some of these things, and the Codeberg migration may help us improve in other areas. Here's a great example from Gentoo (similar type of volunteer distribution to Guix) of tying everything together in a clear way:

https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/mail-client/neomutt

It's true then that this GCD does not suggest any automation. It's trying to move forward through organisational (project plan) and some technical (reducing work through package sets/supported architectures).  I would love to see the project improve developer tooling - it's important - but not specific to releases. For example, I would love to see automated update testing [0] where some of the base work has already been done.

Do you have any particular areas where you think "automation" would improve releases? And/or (outside of the GCD) do you see the value of improving our developer tooling?

Steve / Futurile

[0 https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-12/msg00011.html