 | NixOS Marketing | 272 Members |
| NixOS website + marketing team: https://nixos.org/community/teams/marketing.html | 59 Servers |
| NixOS Marketing | 272 Members |
| NixOS website + marketing team: https://nixos.org/community/teams/marketing.html | 59 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Mar 2023 | ||
 matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Who defines reproducible anyway? I couldn't spot a definition on that page | 12:56:13 |
 Bryan Honof | I mean, there is this "BTW, I use arch" meme. But I have this feeling the Arch community holds themselves back a bit more. Where the Nix community isn't afraid to say "hey, look at us, here we are!". Which I think is amazing, but I also understand some people don't want to talk about these kinds of things. Example, at configmanagement camp I talked with a guy from the puppet community, and explained to him what Nix was all about. But, I also made sure to ask him about his community/project, and made sure not to interject him with "oh, but Nix does that better", even if I wanted to. Building communities isn't about being the better project, but about being the most approachable one i.m.o. It can be quite overwhelming if people get the feeling they'll be bombarded with "oh, but Nix" when they say something that might be relevant. So, we have to make sure we don't only yell Nix, but listen to others as well. | 12:58:14 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | And at the same time, that "Oh, but Nix" is what makes them take a second look. | 12:58:47 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | I've had that experience too many times to count. | 12:59:01 |
| Bryan Honof | In reply to @matthewcroughan:defenestrate.it As far as I'm aware there's a million definitions, which doesn't help. But the reproducible builds initiative shares that name. At FOSDEM someone told me they were confused if Nix was part of that or not. We're also kind of ignoring some people's work at trying to get Nix into that project. Which doesn't help. | 12:59:21 |
| Bryan Honof | In reply to @matthewcroughan:defenestrate.itDefinitely, but not if you interrupt them 10x to do it. That "oh, but Nix" moment should almost be timed :P | 13:00:00 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | There's a point at which you know it's not worth continuing shilling Nix, I know that threshold now. But most people are more willing than you think. | 13:00:34 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Also the right setting, like at a conference vs online in their chatrooms. | 13:01:03 |
| Bryan Honof | True, but I think we can agree that forcefully trying to sell them Nix doesn't help either party. | 13:01:31 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Sure, I can agree on that. | 13:01:41 |
| Bryan Honof | It's also quite true we currently don't recognize other distros/projects, like raitobezarius says. We could give them shoutouts on social media when they achieve something. But then again, the socials a.t.m. seem to attract people that are already somewhat involved with Nix. | 13:03:44 |
| Bryan Honof | Perhaps starting with wishing them a happy anniversary when they have one would be a good start? | 13:04:54 |
| Bryan Honof | We could look at projects trying to advance field that Nix is also interested in an give them shoutouts that way? What do you think? | 13:05:23 |
 raboof | In reply to @matthewcroughan:defenestrate.itOf course the reproducible builds project doesn't get to define the word "reproducible". Because of wide recognition of the phrase "reproducible builds", I think we should avoid using that particular phrase for other types of reproducibility - that is just confusing (and can even be seen as piggy-backing, even when unintentional). As for definition, I think the tagline ("a set of software development practices that create an independently-verifiable path from source to binary code") sums it up nicely, and does imply bit-by-bit reproducibility (which can indeed be hard 😆) | 13:18:08 |
 raitobezarius | In reply to @matthewcroughan:defenestrate.it
Please, let's not make statement like those. I think we ought to be the bigger person in those situations, I believe we have a great community and that's why I am hopeful we can do better. Let's treat them with respect, no matter what our previous experiences were (they might not be representative of their community, they might be changing, etc.) as we would like to have for us too. | 14:10:37 |
| raitobezarius | In reply to @bjth:matrix.org Moreover, to me, as a NixOS developer, I benefit a lot of the work from other distributions such as Gentoo, Debian or even Archlinux. We are going to benefit from this and I do not want to make it look like we "fixed" everything because NixOS is amazing, etc. Yes, NixOS can do a lot of incredible things, but also because we are building all together even if we do not see it "directly". Foxboron for example is working on https://github.com/golang/go/issues/57120 -- true, bit to bit reproducibility is hard, but this is going to benefit us in the end, we are going to say we have bit to bit reproducibility for Go, but it's a Archlinux developer who has been driving this change. Let's empower everyone in the Linux distribution community, this is also a very sustainable fashion to draw people to NixOS, other than just simply "oh, but Nix" in every discussion. We can explain what we do and our struggles. I also had many situations where explaining honestly our challenges and how do we benefit from other distribution made the person interested into NixOS. | 14:16:39 |
| Bryan Honof | In reply to @raitobezarius:matrix.orgYup, I agree with this. Also had the same experience where empathy actually got them to look at Nix. | 14:18:14 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Who is it that is denying the work of others? I haven't done that, and I don't see others doing that. | 14:18:41 |
| Bryan Honof | I don't think anyone is actively denying the work of others, but we also don't mention/appreciate it anywhere. | 14:19:17 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | The lobste.rs thread has a lot of discussion, and as a direct reply to Raito is:
| 14:19:56 |
| raitobezarius | In reply to @matthewcroughan:defenestrate.it"#shuddausednix" to a rant on Archlinux is saying "heh, you are using a bad distribution, you wouldn't have this issue with NixOS", at least, for Archlinux developers | 14:20:01 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | In reply to @raitobezarius:matrix.orgI mean, if you think that, you should go see my usage of it on Twitter. | 14:20:19 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | It's not intended to be offensive. I think you're just rumbled by it. Which is a bit funny lol. | 14:20:50 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Just last night it actually convinced someone to join the Matrix, and they've been wanting to convert to Nix. | 14:21:52 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | And they asked to hire someone to mentor them. | 14:22:04 |
| raitobezarius | I think what I am trying to convey is that people feel hurt by this, usually, when people are told this, they acknowledge this can be offensive and apologise, if you don't think this is offensive, fine ; but I don't think it's a good strategy on the long term generally. Sentences of the type "X is a joke, it's not intended to be offensive" are not good looking to me regarding these problems. | 14:22:08 |
| raitobezarius | In reply to @matthewcroughan:defenestrate.itThis is orthogonal to the subject here | 14:22:43 |
| raitobezarius | It's not because you (or we) convince people to try NixOS that it's sustainable to hurt other people's feelings in the process | 14:23:01 |
| raitobezarius | And this is going to be increasingly important as NixOS becomes more popular | 14:23:09 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | I like it. I think it's good marketing. I'm sorry if you don't like it, or think otherwise. We can have a difference of opinion here. | 14:24:41 |