Re: Go 1.20 and bootstrapping

[Tobias Nygren <tnn%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Sat, 10 Dec 2022 17:52:09 +0100
Benny Siegert <bsiegert%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:

> Go 1.20 will require Go 1.17.13 or newer for bootstrapping.
> 
> We have two options:
> 
> 1. Depend on go118 and use that for bootstrapping. Go 1.17 had a few
> issues on NetBSD, so 1.18 is a better choice. This means that
> installing Go 1.20 from scratch will first build go14 (which is in C),
> then go118, then go120.

This is the path of least resistance I guess.
Unless someone volounteers to actively maintain go-bin.

> 2. Use go-bin for bootstrapping -- apart from the fact that the
> aarch64 version is too old. The concern, of course, is that you have
> to be confident in a binary bootstrap kit.

I can bump it to the latest version. It will be required for aarch64
even if you go with option 1. It's a bummer upstream doesn't ship
official binaries for NetBSD. That would make this so much easier.

It is quite straightforward to build reproducable and verifiable binaries
with go so the binary blob issue should not be of much concern.

> Should we offer both possibilities? Which one should be the default?

I don't see any benefit in offering explicit support for both.
Implicitly we already support it because a user can set
GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP to any value they like in mk.conf.
(Like say /usr/pkg/go119 if they want to bootstrap from an installed
1.19 package.)