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different. If you are an average ArchLinux user who is trying to install the
latest version of a random Haskell package from AUR, then that attempt is more
likely to fail than it is to succeed.

Of course, the accuracy of that estimate can be debated. One might argue that
some packages are more important than others, and that the important packages
are more likely to build than the ones that no-one needs anyway. One might
argue that users have all kinds of mechanisms available to them to work around
those problems, and so on. But those technicalities are not going to change the
fact that we do clearly not achieve our greater goal of bringing Hackage to
ArchLinux in way that lives up to the motto of "batteries included", which is
the Haskell community's way of saying "our stuff just works". As far as
ArchHaskell is concerned, it does not.

Now, there are major challenges ahead. We need to improve the quality of our
package set. On top of that, switching to GHC 7 is going to be a lot of fun.
The prospect of dynamically linked binaries forces us to re-think the way we
determine what the difference between $depends and $makedepends is. The
continued growth of Hackage is going to push the limits of our tool-chain even
further. All of this needs to be addressed in some way, and everyone who has an
interest in this effort is hereby encouraged to contribute his or hers ideas
and suggestions now.

To get the discussion started, I'd like to offer a concrete question that you
might want to think about: is it realistic to try and support *all* of Hackage?

Take care,
Peter