Subject: GNU Mes 0.25 released

<#secure method=pgpmime mode=sign>

We are happy to announce the release of GNU Mes 0.25!

Although it's been only four months since the previous release, this
release represents 70 commits over two years by five people.  This
release brings RISC-V64-linux support.

We are excited that the NLnet Foundation is sponsoring this work!

What's next?

Bringing the Full Source Bootstrap to NixOS.  Full Guile compatible
module support, and support for running Gash and Gash-Utils.  Support
for bootstrapping gcc-4.6.4, and a Full Source Bootstrap for
armhf-linux, and riscv64-linux.

Enjoy!

* About

  GNU Mes is a Scheme interpreter and C compiler for bootstrapping the
  GNU System.  It has helped to decimate the number and size of binary
  seeds that were used in the bootstrap of GNU Guix 1.0.  Recently,
  version 0.24.2 has realized the first Full Source Bootstrap for Guix
  <https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-building-from-source-all-the-way-down/>.
  The final goal is to help create a full source bootstrap as part of
  the bootstrappable builds effort <https://bootstrappable.org> for any
  UNIX-like operating system.

  Mes + MesCC + Mes C Library can build a bootstrappable TinyCC
  <https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc> that is self-hosting.  Using this
  bootstrappable-tcc and the Mes C library we can build an ancient
  version of the GNU tools 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 was inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: LISP-1.5 --
  John McCarthy page 13, Guix's source/binary packaging transparency and
  Jeremiah Orians's Stage0 <https://github.com/oriansj/stage0>, a
  ~500-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-0.25.tar.gz
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mes/mes-0.25.tar.gz.sig

  Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.25.tar.gz
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.25.tar.gz.sig

  Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  mes-0.25.tar.gz
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  mes-0.25.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-0.25.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

  Alternatively, Mes can be installed or updated using Guix:

    guix pull
    guix install mes


* Changes in 0.25 since 0.24.2

  ** Core
  *** Support for riscv64-linux.
  ** Build
  *** Support M2-Planet build for x86_64-linux.
  *** Building with M2-Planet-1.11.0 is now supported.
  *** The requirement for M2-Planet's --bootstrap-mode was dropped.
  ** Noteworthy bug fixes
  *** In the REPL, `include', `load', and `,use MODULE' now work.
  *** Using mes' `access' with R_OK now respects read permissions.
  *** On 64bit, displayed values are no longer truncated.
  *** On 64bit, MesCC now correctly supports 8-byte immediate values.
  *** MesCC now initializes struct fields to 0.
  *** The MesCC test suite passes with gcc >= 10
  An array overflow bug was fixed in `63-struct-cell.c'.

Join bug-mes@gnu.org and #bootstrappable on irc.libera.chat for
discussions.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release:

     7	Andrius Štikonas
     1	Efraim Flashner
     1	Emily Trau
     5	Ekaitz Zarraga
    49	Janneke Nieuwenhuizen
    15	W. J. van der Laan