from:"mikadoZero"



Ricardo Wurmus writes:

> mikadoZero  writes:
>
>>>   • “GuixSD” has been removed from the web site and from almost all of
>>> the source code.  Still need to fix the file names that appear in
>>> Makefile.am.
>>
>> Is it to be changed to "Guix SD"?
>
> Just “Guix system”.

I will wait for patch #34848 to be committed before looking at this.

Re: ; XXX: remove when Inetutils suffices



Leo Famulari writes:

>> What does XXX in a comment mean?  I have seen it a couple times.
>
> It indicates something undesirable. Like a really nasty hack to
> work-around something or a problem upstream that we have no good
> solution for. Sort of like TODO but with extra complications.

Thanks for the explanation.

Re: Status update on 1.0

Ludovic Courtès writes:

>   • The graphical installer has been merged (yay!) but we still need to
> discuss it in the manual and to test it some more.

I was just going to install Guix SD on another system.  So I could try
the installer.  I could also try my hand at texinfo and do some
documentation of the graphical installer.

>   • “GuixSD” has been removed from the web site and from almost all of
> the source code.  Still need to fix the file names that appear in
> Makefile.am.

Is it to be changed to "Guix SD"?

Greping the Guix repo it looks like “GuixSD” is in documentation (in
different languages) and source code comments.

What should be done when it is part of something more important like
file paths, variable name or command line argument?

I can start with the doc directory.

; XXX: remove when Inetutils suffices

system.scm line 537:

net-tools ; XXX: remove when Inetutils suffices

git log -L 537,537:system.scm outputs:

commit 6f436c54d6d9698e62639de31a845cd9b9167423
Date:   Wed Jun 4 2014

This comment was committed in 2014.  Is inetutils at the point where
net-tools can be removed?

If it is then I can submit a patch to remove the line.

What does XXX in a comment mean?  I have seen it a couple times.

Re: Guix trademarked by Express Logic

n...@n0.is writes:

> The other Guix keeps coming up over the years.
> I don't think we have to do anyting because it's 2 separate fields
> of software.
> No problem unless one of the Guix starts making it one.

Reading the recent press release linked it is clear that Express Logic
is continuing to invest more in their Guix trademarked product over
time.  As a result of this it is increasing likely that Express Logic
could request that the Guix free software project stop using it's
trademark.  Correspondingly it looks less likely that it will just go
away.

Re: CDN Test Results - Should We Continue Using a CDN?

Thank you for correcting my false assumptions and sharing that link.

Ricardo Wurmus writes:

> mikadoZero  writes:
>
>> In "14.4.1 Software Freedom" of the Guix manual it says that Guix is free
>> software and follows the free software distribution guidelines.
>>
>> Is using a proprietary non free CDN as a core part of Guix's
>> infrastructure in conflict with Guix's software freedom?
>
> Two things:
>
> 1) It is not a core part of Guix’s infrastructure.  People who want to
> bypass the CDN can do so by fetching substitutes from berlin.guixsd.org
> instead of ci.guix.info.  People can also opt out of getting substitutes
> all together or choose to get them from some other build farm.  (The
> build farm is little more than another Guix user.)
>
> 2) “proprietary” / “non-free” terminology does not apply to services.
> See also
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html
>
> This is a case of “Service as a Hardware Substitute” where we pay to use
> hardware that we do not physically control to substitute for having to
> own and maintain hardware at a large number of physical locations in the
> world.
>
>> Using a proprietary CDN has the potential for an unplanned increase in
>> workload.  This is because of the combination of vendor lock in and
>> product line discontinuation.  Which could create unplanned rework of
>> setting up a CDN elsewhere.  This hinders Guix's resource planning by
>> introducing the potential for surprise rework.
>
> There is no vendor lock in.  We can drop and have dropped the use of a
> CDN without service interruption.  If the CDN service were to be
> discontinued we would simply revert to not offering package distribution
> via CDN.

Guix trademarked by Express Logic

I have search guix-devel for this and did not find it. I would like to
know what people think about these topics:

* does the Guix free software project have a trademark?
* proactive name change
* reacting to a forced name change
* talking with Forbes Lindsey of Jade to gain insights
* talking with Express Logic about their Guix trademark

# Guix is trademarked

That Guix is trademarked by Express Logic was brought to my attention by
in this message:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-03/msg00122.html

Thank you Tobias Geerinckx-Rice for mentioning this.

Looking into this further here is additional information.

Express Logic website:

https://rtos.com/

Here is a press releases about Express Logic's Guix trademarked software
product:

https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/express-logics-guix-becomes-the-first-deeply-embedded-gui-solution-certified-to-sil-4-asil-d-and-medical-class-c-for-safety-critical-iot-systems-2019-02-27

# Does Guix have a trademark?

Does the Guix free software project have a trademark for Guix?

There is only one search result for Guix's website using the term
trademark. It is in the manual "14.4.1 Software Freedom" and is not
relevant to the question at hand. I see no indication that the Guix
free software project has trademarked Guix.

# A parallel in free software

If it is the case that Guix the free software project does not have a
trademark for Guix, then I would like to share what looks like a clear
parallel. It involves another free software project that used to be
called Jade. Jade did not have a trademark for Jade. A software
company had the trademark for Jade. The company forced Jade to change
it's name. Assuming Guix does not have a trademark then it looks like
it is the same situation without yet having been forced to change it's
name.

Here is a link to an issue on Pug's (Jade's new name) GitHub page
discussing their forced name change:
github.com/pug/issues/2184

# Proactive name change

Looking at the pug thread above shows that it would have been nice if
Jade had not been forced to change their name so quickly and could have
engaged it's community further on ideas for a new name.

This raises the idea that proactively changing Guix's name might be
better than reacting to a forced name change. A benefit to a proactive
name change is being able to chose the timing. So for example the name
change could be planned to coincide with the 1.0 release which I have
heard is approaching. Similar to a butterfly emerging from a
chrysalis. Maybe there is a opportunity here and this could be turned
into a nice announcement.

# Learning from Jade

>From that thread it looks like Forbes Lindsey was the person that the
company's lawyers were sending letters to. They might be a good person
to talk as they may be able to share some interesting insights that
would likely be directly relevant to the Guix.

# Contacting Express Logic

Also it might be good to reach out to Express Logic as they may not
actually have any problem with the Guix free software project using the
name they have trademarked.

# Summary

I am not recommending any specific course of action. I just want to
start a discussion.

Also in the interest of transparency I am linking to messages I recently
wrote where I am open about my bias of not being a fan of Guix
pronounced as "geeks".

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-03/msg00121.html

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-03/msg00134.html

Re: CDN Test Results - Should We Continue Using a CDN?

Chris Marusich writes:

> Since the test has concluded, we are not currently using a CDN.  Going
> forward, we need to decide if we want to continue to use a CDN.

In "14.4.1 Software Freedom" of the Guix manual it says that Guix is free
software and follows the free software distribution guidelines.

Is using a proprietary non free CDN as a core part of Guix's
infrastructure in conflict with Guix's software freedom?

Using a proprietary CDN has the potential for an unplanned increase in
workload.  This is because of the combination of vendor lock in and 
product line discontinuation.  Which could create unplanned rework of
setting up a CDN elsewhere.  This hinders Guix's resource planning by
introducing the potential for surprise rework.

Are there any free software content delivery networks?

> One of the reasons why we wanted to use a CDN in the first place was to
> free up resources so that the community could spend more time working on
> better solutions.  For example, some people have expressed an interest
> in a distributed or peer-to-peer substitute mechanism using IPFS or
> GNUnet.  In fact, Ludo paved the way for this by submitting patches to
> distribute substitutes over IPFS:
>
> https://issues.guix.info/issue/33899
>
> However, it seems his work hasn't succeeded in exciting people enough to
> carry the momentum forward.  We need more people who are interested in
> this and can work on it!  Otherwise, it may never become a reality.  So
> if you care about distributed or peer-to-peer substitutes, please help!

This is interesting.  Peer-to-peer substitutes using free software is
well aligned with Guix as a free software project.  I would want to use
this method if it was available.

Has there been any progress on this since the end of that thread?

Any guesses about how difficult this may be to complete and how much
work might be required?

Re: Guix pronunciation

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice writes:

> Hullo!
>
> Now I personally think ‘Guix’ looks and sounds good (not fine), and
> our logo is positively stunning, and damn professional too. If that
> makes me biased, so be it ;-)
>
> mikadoZero wrote:
>> I also wanted to know what people think about the "geeks"
>> pronunciation and how it may impact adoption of Guix as it continues
>> to grow long term.  Maybe someday becoming as popular as Debian,
>> macOS or Windows are today (wishful thinking).  For example what if
>> Linux kernel had actually been called Freax. […] Would it have
>> negatively impacted adoption of the kernel.
>
> I really don't think so.  ‘Linux’ is the fellow's name with an X on
> the end.  It's as much of a anti-marketing joke as ‘Freax’ was (or GNU
> or Guix for that matter).  The only reason it seems more familiar is
> because, well, it is.
>
> And (honest question): do we even care?  Such a stupid reason to shoot
> yourself in the foot with an inferior package manager.
>
>> Yes Freax and "geeks"
>
> [and “Linux”]
>
>> are fun.   On the other hand branding is important.
>
> You wrote this as a contradiction but I don't see one.
>
> The world's most valuable and evil company was once called ‘Google’.
> Koooky!

Guix is different from Linux or Google because pronouncing it as
"geeks" gives it a negative connotation and sentiment.  See below.

>
>> Just to make my bias clear.  I am not a fan of pronouncing Guix
>> "geeks" and find myself thinking of deliberately mispronouncing
>> Guix as "gwixs" or spelling out the letters G U I X when talking
>> to people about Guix.
>
> That's really unfortunate.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> T G-R
>
> GUIX® is a trademark of Express Logic, Inc.  All other brands or
> product names are the property of their respective holders.

In my initial message I should have explained why I am not a fan of Guix
pronounced "geeks".  It is because the pronunciation is the same as the
plural of the word geek. The word geek has an ambiguous definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek  When Guix is pronounced "geeks"
there are negative connotation.

The current participants in the Guix community have a self selection
bias by using alpha or beta software.  This could shows itself through a
focus on the positive definition of geek.  However I am alone in
perceiving the negative connotations and sentiment of the word geek.

The vaderSentiment project on GitHub has sentiment scores for words
which you can see in it's vader_lexicon.txt.  Both geeks and geek have
negative sentiment.

Re: Guix pronunciation



sirgazil writes:

> Hi, mikadoZero,
>
>
> El 10/03/19 a las 11:13 a. m., mikadoZero escribió:
>> Doing this duckduckgo site search:  `geeks
>> site:https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/` gives me only one match.  Which
>> is footnote 1 of section 1 Introduction of the manual.  I do not know of
>> anywhere else where the pronunciation of Guix is explicitly stated.
>>
>> I would like to know what other think about making the pronunciation of
>> Guix obvious to anyone who visits the website.  The reasoning for this is
>> because the pronunciation of Guix as "geeks" is not intuitive.  I
>> think a lot of people will assume it is pronounced some other way.  For
>> example "gwixs" or "gooixs".  I was not sure how to say Guix before
>> watching a talk on Guix.  It is also easy for people to miss that single
>> footnote in the manual on how to pronounce Guix.
>
>
> When there are more introductory videos about Guix in the home page, I
> think the pronunciation will be easier to discover.
>
> If it is not enough with the videos, I think one could do as Wikipedia
> does: adding a speaker icon which plays an audio file with the
> pronunciation of a word being defined.
>

I like how the Guix website does not have any JavaScript on it.  This
makes it accessible to terminal browsers and the eww browser in Emacs.
It is good to accommodate these non JavaScript browser as they help
people deal with: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

I hope that when video and audio are being added to the Guix website
that terminal browsers are kept in mind. 

> [...]
>
>
>> I also wanted to know what people think about the "geeks" pronunciation
>> and how it may impact adoption of Guix as it continues to grow long term.  
>> Maybe
>> someday becoming as popular as Debian, macOS or Windows are today
>> (wishful thinking).  For example what if Linux kernel had actually been
>> called Freax.
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming
>> Would it have negatively impacted adoption of the kernel.
>>
>> Yes Freax and "geeks" are fun.
>> On the other hand branding is important.
>>
>> Just to make my bias clear.  I am not a fan of pronouncing Guix "geeks"
>> and find myself thinking of deliberately mispronouncing Guix as "gwixs"
>> or spelling out the letters G U I X when talking to people about Guix.
>>
>> I am curious what others think about these two related points.
>
>
> I don't see much problem with the relation to the term "geek". At
> least in my experience, I don't remember disapproving or derogative
> uses of it.
>
> Also where I live, in South America, in the Aburrá Valley, The term
> "geek" is used in its English form by some people to describe
> themselves as people who are very interested in technology and its
> specifics.

Re: Config files without corresponding program

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice writes:

> mikadoZero wrote:
>> When I first installed Guix SD I followed the instructions in the
>> manual.  I modeled my system off of the example system configuration
>> template 'for a "bare bones" setup, with no X11 display server' from
>> "8.1 Using the Configuration System" of the manual.
>>
>> In the home directories for both root and another user there where
>> configuration files that did not have a corresponding program
>> installed.
>> The configuration files in question were:
>>
>> guile-wm - guile-wm
>> gdbinit - gdb
>> Xdefaults - xorg
>> zprofile - zsh
>>
>> Is there a reason why does installing Guix SD leave these
>> configuration
>> files in the home directories?
>
> These files are created by DEFAULT-SKELETONS in (gnu system shadow) to
> make those programmes play well with Guix, because there's no way to
> tell when or if the user will use them.  So everything is fine.

What about the scenario where someone deletes these seemingly unneeded
configuration files because they are not using the program?  I have
done this and others might as well.  Normally there are no issues with
removing unused configuration files.  Would a user then run into
problems if they later install one of these programs having previously
deleted it's special Guix configuration file? 

If so then would having the installation of these configuration files
done by the package definitions of their respective programs instead of
DEFAULT-SKELETONS solve this potential user error? 

Installation of one of these program could serve as an indicator that
the user needs it's configuration files that make the program work with
Guix.

Config files without corresponding program

When I first installed Guix SD I followed the instructions in the
manual.  I modeled my system off of the example system configuration
template 'for a "bare bones" setup, with no X11 display server' from
"8.1 Using the Configuration System" of the manual.

In the home directories for both root and another user there where
configuration files that did not have a corresponding program installed.
The configuration files in question were:

.guile-wm - guile-wm
.gdbinit - gdb
.Xdefaults - xorg
.zprofile - zsh

Is there a reason why does installing Guix SD leave these configuration
files in the home directories?

Guix pronunciation