ABCL Docker Images

[Mark Evenson]

> On Nov 7, 2020, at 21:29, Eric Timmons <etimmons at mit.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hello fans of the Armed Bear,

[…]


> I am planning that only the latest version of ABCL will be
> "supported". The initial request would also backfill 1.7.1. Once a
> version becomes unsupported it would not be removed from Docker hub, it
> just receives no more base image updates.
> 
> Next, some info about Docker Official Images:
> 
> Documentation on the program is located at
> https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/official_images/ and
> https://github.com/docker-library/official-images
> 
> In summary, every image in the program is reviewed by a team for best
> practices and security, built by that team, and is available for pulling
> without specifying a namespace (e.g., `docker pull abcl:latest`). This
> helps give users confidence in the code they're running, as opposed to
> pulling from random personal namespaces.
> 
> Even the Official Images team admits that "Official Images" is not a
> great name as it can imply that the upstream of the software contained
> in the image maintains the images when that is frequently not the
> case. As I'm not an ABCL dev myself, the image would be considered
> community maintained and the description on Docker Hub would clearly
> point to the cl-docker-images/abcl repo as where to file issues with the
> images. But it is very conceivable that random users may show up on this
> list asking for help. I am subscribed to this list and will do my best
> to redirect/answer any of those types of emails that come in.
> 
> Thoughts, questions, concerns?

Looks just fine.  I think I will adopt some of your conventions for the docker
entrypoint and other things from your binary-based Dockerfiles, with the
[source-based Dockerfile recipe in the ABCL tree][1] so that I user can use
either one interchangibly without surprise.

[1]: <https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/abcl/abcl/-/blob/master/Dockerfile>

What can I do as the ABCL Release Engineer to get changes to your Dockerfiles
when ABCL is released?  Submit a pull request?  Use a more credentialed
public/private key pair when I sign the releases?

Thanks ever so much for charging ahead here,
Mark

-- 
"A screaming comes across the sky.  It has happened before but there is nothing 
to compare to it now."