
Subject: GNU Mes 0.24 released

<#secure method=pgpmime mode=sign>

We are thrilled to announce the release of GNU Mes 0.24, representing
222 commits over one year by four people.

Mes has now been ported to M2-Planet and can be bootstrapped using
stage0-posix[0], starting from the 357-byte hex0 binary of the
bootstrap-seeds[1], as was promised at FOSDEM'21[2].

We are exciteda that the NlNet Foundation[4] is again sponsoring this
work!

What's next?

Work to integrate this so-called "Full Source Bootstrap" is happening on
the wip-full-source-bootstrap[3] branch.  Also, full Guile compatible
module support, and RICS-V support.

Enjoy!

* About

  GNU Mes[5] 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[6] of GNU Guix[7].  The
  final goal is to help create a full source bootstrap as part of the
  bootstrappable builds[8] 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[9] and Mescc-Tools[10].

  Mes has a Garbage Collector, a library of loadable Scheme modules--
  notably Dominique Boucher's LALR[11], Pre-R6RS portable
  syntax-case[12] with R7RS ellipsis, Matt Wette's Nyacc[13] --and test
  suite, just enough to support a REPL and a C99 compiler: mescc.

  Mes + MesCC + Mes C Library can build a bootstrappable TinyCC[14] 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[15] --
  John McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency
  and Jeremiah Orians's stage0[16] 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.tar.gz
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mes/mes-0.24.tar.gz.sig

  Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.24.tar.gz
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.24.tar.gz.sig

  Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

  f6681aa02edc6729af43f1d7c46ae1a97cbc1c92  mes-0.24.tar.gz
  828be15e02c103df8a248232491fba10d763724d6ec10f08a2e0e1d249bd9902  mes-0.24.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.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 since 0.23
 ** Core
 *** Mes and Mes C Library can now be built with M2-Planet.
 *** Mes now supports the --bootstrap build on ARM.
 ** MesCC
 *** MesCC now supports the integer suffixes:
 Next to `U', also support `ULL', `UL', `L', and `LL'.
 ** Noteworthy bug fixes
 *** MesCC now uses the unsigned type for sizeof.
 *** MesCC now only uses signed division if numerator is signed.
 *** The Mes C library now supports an argv bigger than 255.
 *** Development build support with Guile-2 was resurrected.
 *** The logand procedure now works correctly.
 *** The 64bit build was resurrected.

* Links
  [0] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0-posix
  [1] https://github.com/oriansj/bootstrap-seeds
  [2] https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/gnumes/
  [3] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/log/?h=wip-full-source-bootstrap
  [4] https://nlnet.nl/project/GNUMes-ARM_RISC-V
  [5] https://www.gnu.org/software/mes
  [6] https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2020/guix-further-reduces-bootstrap-seed-to-25
  [7] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix
  [8] https://bootstrappable.org
  [9] https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet
  [10] https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/mescc-tools
  [11] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
  [12] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
  [13] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc
  [14] https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc
  [15] http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf
  [16] https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/stage0
