On 01/21/2018 at 23:04 Chris Marusich writes: > Ricardo Wurmus <rek...@elephly.net> writes: > >> Hi Guix, >> >> on the website it starts right away with a list of features: >> “Liberating”, “Dependable”, and “Hackable”. But what is this thing >> called Guix? >> >> We should add a very short paragraph above that list to say what Guix >> and GuixSD are. >> >> What do you think? > > How is Guix different from other package managers? Why is it better? > I think that's the most important thing to explain. I've also found > that it's one of the most difficult things to explain. I think we > should entice readers by concisely explaining that, if we can.
Agreed. The first step: STOP calling Guix a "package manager". Why? Users aren't shopping for a package manager. They either already have one, or expect one to come with the software they are looking for. They will think, "I don't need one." So calling Guix a "package manager" sets up a marketing problem like selling transmissions to car drivers :-( How can we avoid this? Call it something else! What? Ricardo called Guix a "software environment manager". This is a better term and we can apply it to both Guix and GuixSD ;-) > Perhaps the best way to do that would be to write a problem statement. > Instead of explaining what Guix is, explain what problems Guix solves. > The first chapter of Eelco Dolstra's Ph. D. thesis [1] did a fantastic > job of explaining what problems Nix solves, and by the end of that > chapter, I was really excited to learn more about Nix (and Guix) and try > it out. In particular, the list of problems with the state of the art > in section 1.3 "Motivation" and the list of solutions that Nix offers in > section 1.5 "Contributions" were particularly concise and convincing. > Maybe we can aim for something similar on our Guix website? > > Footnotes: > [1] https://nixos.org/~eelco/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf Agreed. If we could reduce this to a short list of problems we could then say, "Introducing Guix/GuixSD, the first software environment manager that solves these key problems. <list>" WDYT? - George
