[rb-general] bootstrappable builds: practical source based bootstrapping

[Eric Myhre]

You almost certainly already have noticed this, but on the off chance
not, the bootstrappable.org site was actually launched by mainly the
Guix folks, and was born during a reproducible builds workshop :)  So
yes, some degree of shared dreams with other people on this list seems
quite likely!

I for one am not necessarily flush with the skills to help, but I would
love to see it all happen.  The GCC builds I've done to date make me
quite alarmed.  A clearing, more minimal bootstrappable sequence would
make me very happy and I'd love to hear about milestones.

Cheers!


On 07/24/2017 11:57 AM, Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I am working on something related to reproducible builds which is
> possibly significantly new.  [GuixSD's] reproducible builds inspired me
> last year to create Mes[0], a project that aims to produce source based
> bootstrapping.
>
> It's great if we can reproduce [almost all of] our packages from
> source...so that got me thinking: what about the initial GCC and the
> other bootstrap binaries?  This is now one of the aims of the
> “bootstrappable builds” effort[1].
>
> The idea of Mes is to have a Scheme intepreter written in simplified
> stage0[2] M1 assembly that executes a C compiler written in Scheme, that
> compiles tinycc.  Tinycc can compile Gcc.
>
> The Scheme interpreter is prototyped in ~1400 lines of simple C (mes.c)
> and the C compiler in Scheme (mescc.scm) can compile this interpreter,
> which makes them mutually self-hosting.
>
> I'm working with Jeremiah Orians [cc] who has created stage0, a source
> based toolchain that builds from a self-hosting hex assembler in ~280
> bytes via a labeled hex linker up to a simplifield M1 assembler.
>
> This list came to my attention after a posting that suggested that
> specific plans to deliver something significantly new be proposed for
> future funding.  It would be nice if we could get some help and it
> would of course be amazing if there would be a possibility of funding
> for a source based bootstrap path.
>
> What do you think, are our efforts related?
>
> Greetings,
> janneke
>
> [0] https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes
> [1] https://bootstrappable.org
> [2] https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/stage0
>