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Read together, some comments seem to reveal the poles of a moral landscape in the hacker community: > Guix saved my life... finally feeling some stability in l

Read together, some comments seem to reveal the poles of a moral landscape in the hacker community: > Guix saved my life... finally feeling some stability in life; and a desire to explore other creative outlets such as blogging (hi!), cooking, growing sustainable foods; and healthy activities like climbing and skiing. None of this would be possible without Guix, > If Guix ever becomes mainstream, it will be in spite of their efforts. What's behind resentment of the sacrifices made by others on a journey to modest personal success and happiness? I think that many of us are deeply unhappy with our jobs. For moral reasons. The high salaries aren't enough. But there isn't the courage to take a plunge into something crazy, risky - the spiritual transformation so deeply craved for. If you have "mouths to feed", and think that is stopping you, try talking to your partner and dependents. You may be surprised that they love you, want you to be happy, and support your projects.

xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
I do not at all resent the attitude. I resent that Guix is presented as a serious alternative to, say, Nix, within this community. I will be the first person to appreciate the efforts of folks working on Open and Free Software, it's really noble. The world would be a better place if all our software was Free, but that's not the world we live in today. I wish them all the luck and success in the world, but wanting adoption while also shunning (guilting?) your user base when confronted with practical feedback is not a healthy attitude.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  I picked out your comment and didn't mean that to reflect personally on you or assume your deeper intentions, sorry. Yours and few other comments seemed to really jar against what felt like a very sincere and open post by the OP. I'm sure you do appreciate the efforts while simply disagreeing with the ideology. Fair enough.
  - xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
    I appreciate the response, no hard feelings. Your take was fair. I definitely don't want to dog pile on what is otherwise a warm spirited submission, but something about Guix is grinding my gears! In hindsight, this submission is the wrong forum for such a rant.
- rekado 4y ago
  re "guilting": Even hard-core free software folks will not see the use of proprietary software as a moral failing, but rather as an injustice. Nobody should be shamed for using proprietary software. (I consider it morally wrong to write proprietary software, though.) Even people like RMS have stated as much in the past. Ignore those who turn this free software stuff into some weird quest for moral purity. Nobody cares what software you use; they may pity you for being coerced into using proprietary software or they may judge you for writing proprietary software. re serious alternative: Guix is a serious alternative to Nix. It is for me and the scientists I support, because when it comes to reproducible science there's arguably no better solution out there. With my sysadmin hat on: it's a serious alternative, because I'm using it on dozens of machines successfully. On machines that require non-free blobs it's also a valid choice because its design makes it trivial to install selected non-free software packages.
  - xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
    > Nobody should be shamed for using proprietary software. (I consider it morally wrong to write proprietary software, though.) So you consider my day job morally wrong, but I shouldn't be shamed for that. Got it. When I mentioned that I needed some proprietary bits to get my printer working, it was suggested I buy a different printer. Can you perhaps see how that could be interpreted to be shameful? > On machines that require non-free blobs it's also a valid choice because its design makes it trivial to install selected non-free software packages. Great! Could you please refer me to the relevant documentation?
    - rekado 4y ago
      > So you consider my day job morally wrong, but I shouldn't be shamed for that. Yes, I do consider it morally wrong. So what? I'm aware that most humans are not free agents and are coerced into harmful or destructive behaviors because of economic pressures. We obviously don't agree on our premises. I don't think agreement is required, so what does it matter? > relevant documentation See the chapter on Channels in the Guix manual. It tells you how to enable third-party channels. Once that's done packages and services provided by those channels are indistinguishable from those provided with the official Guix channels, and you can use them wherever you would use packages and services provided by the Guix project. If you want to replace packages used deep down in the package graph (e.g. glibc or something like that), see Package Transformations in the Guix manual. You can rewrite dependencies and drop in your own custom packages, no matter how deep into the guts of the graph you want to reach.

xyzzy_plugh 4y ago

I do not at all resent the attitude. I resent that Guix is presented as a serious alternative to, say, Nix, within this community. I will be the first person to appreciate the efforts of folks working on Open and Free Software, it's really noble. The world would be a better place if all our software was Free, but that's not the world we live in today. I wish them all the luck and success in the world, but wanting adoption while also shunning (guilting?) your user base when confronted with practical feedback is not a healthy attitude.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
I picked out your comment and didn't mean that to reflect personally on you or assume your deeper intentions, sorry. Yours and few other comments seemed to really jar against what felt like a very sincere and open post by the OP. I'm sure you do appreciate the efforts while simply disagreeing with the ideology. Fair enough.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  I appreciate the response, no hard feelings. Your take was fair. I definitely don't want to dog pile on what is otherwise a warm spirited submission, but something about Guix is grinding my gears! In hindsight, this submission is the wrong forum for such a rant.
rekado 4y ago
re "guilting": Even hard-core free software folks will not see the use of proprietary software as a moral failing, but rather as an injustice. Nobody should be shamed for using proprietary software. (I consider it morally wrong to write proprietary software, though.) Even people like RMS have stated as much in the past. Ignore those who turn this free software stuff into some weird quest for moral purity. Nobody cares what software you use; they may pity you for being coerced into using proprietary software or they may judge you for writing proprietary software. re serious alternative: Guix is a serious alternative to Nix. It is for me and the scientists I support, because when it comes to reproducible science there's arguably no better solution out there. With my sysadmin hat on: it's a serious alternative, because I'm using it on dozens of machines successfully. On machines that require non-free blobs it's also a valid choice because its design makes it trivial to install selected non-free software packages.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  > Nobody should be shamed for using proprietary software. (I consider it morally wrong to write proprietary software, though.) So you consider my day job morally wrong, but I shouldn't be shamed for that. Got it. When I mentioned that I needed some proprietary bits to get my printer working, it was suggested I buy a different printer. Can you perhaps see how that could be interpreted to be shameful? > On machines that require non-free blobs it's also a valid choice because its design makes it trivial to install selected non-free software packages. Great! Could you please refer me to the relevant documentation?
  - rekado 4y ago
    > So you consider my day job morally wrong, but I shouldn't be shamed for that. Yes, I do consider it morally wrong. So what? I'm aware that most humans are not free agents and are coerced into harmful or destructive behaviors because of economic pressures. We obviously don't agree on our premises. I don't think agreement is required, so what does it matter? > relevant documentation See the chapter on Channels in the Guix manual. It tells you how to enable third-party channels. Once that's done packages and services provided by those channels are indistinguishable from those provided with the official Guix channels, and you can use them wherever you would use packages and services provided by the Guix project. If you want to replace packages used deep down in the package graph (e.g. glibc or something like that), see Package Transformations in the Guix manual. You can rewrite dependencies and drop in your own custom packages, no matter how deep into the guts of the graph you want to reach.