
Subject: GNU Mes 0.24.2 released

<#secure method=pgpmime mode=sign>

We are happy to announce the release of GNU Mes 0.24.2, representing 25
commits over nine months by four people.

This release should fix the long standing `stat64' bug #41264[0].

We are very grateful that the NLnet Foundation[1] is sponsoring this
work!

What's next?

Work to prototype this so-called "Full Source Bootstrap" for ARM on
Aarch64 is happening on the wip-aarch64-bootstrap[2] branch.  Also, full
Guile compatible module support, and RISC-V support.

Enjoy!

* About

  GNU Mes[3] is a Scheme interpreter and C compiler for bootstrapping
  the GNU System.  Since version 0.22 it has again helped to halve the
  size of opaque, uninspectable binary seeds that are currently being
  used in the Reduced Binary Seed bootstrap[4] of GNU Guix[5].  The
  final goal is to help create a full source bootstrap as part of the
  bootstrappable builds[6] effort for UNIX-like operating systems.

  The Scheme interpreter is written in ~5,000 LOC of simple C, and the C
  compiler written in Scheme and these are mutual self-hosting.  Mes can
  now be bootstrapped from M2-Planet[7] and Mescc-Tools[8].

  Mes has a Garbage Collector, a library of loadable Scheme modules--
  notably Dominique Boucher's LALR[9], Pre-R6RS portable
  syntax-case[10] with R7RS ellipsis, Matt Wette's Nyacc[11] --and test
  suite, just enough to support a REPL and a C99 compiler: mescc.

  Mes + MesCC + Mes C Library can build a bootstrappable TinyCC[12] that
  is self-hosting.  Using this tcc and the Mes C library we now have a
  Reduced Binary Seed bootstrap for the gnutools triplet: glibc-2.2.5,
  binutils-2.20.1, gcc-2.95.3.  This is enough to bootstrap Guix for
  i686-linux, x86_64-linux, armhf-linux and aarch64-linux.

  Mes is inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: LISP-1.5[13] --
  John McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency
  and Jeremiah Orians's stage0[14] 357-byte self-hosting hex assembler.

* Download

  git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/mes.git

  Here are the compressed sources and a GPG detached signature[*]:
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mes/mes-0.24.2.tar.gz
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mes/mes-0.24.2.tar.gz.sig

  Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.24.2.tar.gz
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.24.2.tar.gz.sig

  Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

  30b0ce4cd37c87dca37b85a6c19646001881be46  mes-0.24.2.tar.gz
  7ddae0854e46ebfa18c13ab37e64839a7b86ea88aeed366a8d017efd11dae86e  mes-0.24.2.tar.gz

  [*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
  .sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
  and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:

    gpg --verify mes-0.24.2.tar.gz.sig

  If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
  or that public key has expired, try the following commands to update
  or refresh it, and then rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.

    gpg --recv-keys 1A858392E331EAFDB8C27FFBF3C1A0D9C1D65273

* Get informed, get involved

  See https://bootstrappable.org
  Join #bootstrappable on irc.libera.chat

* NEWS
 * Changes in 0.24.2 since 0.24.1
 ** Build
 *** A number of compile warnings have been fixed.
 *** The `simple.make' and `simple.sh' builds have been resurrected.
 ** MesCC
 *** Some assembly defines were added for building TinyCC for x86_64.
 *** `__assert_fail' has been updated to use the standard signature.
 ** Noteworthy bug fixes
 *** A bootstrap build without M2-Planet is now supported again.
 *** `gettimeofday' no longer segfaults in the M2-Planet build.
 *** `stat64' and friends are now used on 32bit platforms.
 This fixes https://debbugs.gnu.org/41264, and should also fix
 https://debbugs.gnu.org/49985,
 https://debbugs.gnu.org/53415,
 https://debbugs.gnu.org/53416.
 *** The Mes C Library now supports uppercase hex conversions.

* Links
  [0] https://debbugs.gnu.org/41264
  [1] https://nlnet.nl/project/GNUMes-ARM_RISC-V
  [2] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/log/?h=wip-aarch64-bootstrap
  [3] https://www.gnu.org/software/mes
  [4] https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2020/guix-further-reduces-bootstrap-seed-to-25
  [5] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix
  [6] https://bootstrappable.org
  [7] https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet
  [8] https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/mescc-tools
  [9] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
  [10] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
  [11] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc
  [12] https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc
  [13] http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf
  [14] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0-posix
