Proposal ticket here: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/3270 Deadline for discussion: June 15 (2 weeks) Text of the proposal: The `packedstring` library has been superseded by the `bytestring` and `text` libraries, yet we are still shipping it with GHC for only one reason: it is used in the representations of three types in `template-haskell`. The proposal is that we * make the types `ModName`, `PkgName`, and `OccName` from `Language.Haskell.TH.Syntax` into abstract newtypes (an API change) * change their representation from `PackedString` to `String` * drop the `packedstring` library from the bootlibs that GHC ships with Relevant discussions: * [http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/libraries/2008-November/010960.html]