[GHC] #5994: Consider adding a flag to ghc's configure to automatically bootstrap and install cabal-install along with ghc

[GHC]

#5994: Consider adding a flag to ghc's configure to automatically bootstrap and
install cabal-install along with ghc
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    Reporter:  td123             |       Owner:                  
        Type:  feature request   |      Status:  new             
    Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:                  
   Component:  Build System      |     Version:  7.4.1           
    Keywords:                    |          Os:  Unknown/Multiple
Architecture:  Unknown/Multiple  |     Failure:  None/Unknown    
  Difficulty:  Unknown           |    Testcase:                  
   Blockedby:                    |    Blocking:                  
     Related:                    |  
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Changes (by simonmar):

 * cc: kosmikus, dcoutts (added)


Comment:

 I talked with Andres and Duncan, and there is general agreement that there
 ought to be a cabal-install release to coincide with a GHC release, or
 very shortly after.  Andres is planning to ship a new release of cabal-
 install next week.

 One problem raised is that we don't always want to foist an experimental
 cabal-install release on everyone, including users of the older more
 stable GHC releases.  We'd rather that only the early adopters who grabbed
 the new GHC release get the new cabal-install release too.  That's a bit
 difficult to arrange, because when something is released on Hackage,
 everyone gets it.  The new solver will be able to help here, because it
 will back off to an older version if the deps for the new version cannot
 be satisfied, which will let us release the experimental cabal-install
 with restricted deps such that it will only build against the new GHC
 release.

 In the future we'll make sure that there's a plan for a cabal-install
 release at or around the GHC release.  That might be a new experimental
 version (using some mechanism to avoid everyone getting it by default), or
 it could be a point release of the current stable cabal-install.  We'll do
 whatever makes the most sense at the time.

 We will also ensure that the cabal-install that ships with the GHC source
 tree will build with that GHC release (and will be a properly tagged
 release? Andres?).

 Does that address all the issues?

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/5994#comment:4>
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