51–60 of 165 posts
> Guix is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system developed by the GNU Project—which respects the freedom of computer users.
For anyone looking for more context. I did not know anything about the what and why and who of this post.
Having read it, I like the author's point of view. Working on it is good for his well-being. That's more than enough reason to pursue it.
I'd love to know how the authors financials work. It sounds like a dream to work on something just because it's fun and fulfilling. I have mouths to feed and that dominates much of my career choices. I'm in a small town in a small country so earning a FAANG salary is not an option. I can't save up and go work on a dream project.
I hear you. I often dream of having a more fulfilling job, but every other job that I could do would earn a fraction of what I'm making now.
It's weird, because we were doing just fine when we had less diposable income. But it really feels like I can't go back now...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back when the idea of “open source” came around, I thought the same. That the ideals of Free Software were too idealistic, and open source is pragmatic and commercially friendly. Fast forward fifteen years and I am finding that Richard Stallman was right. Despite the commercial success of open source, I have found that usefulness does not always lead to a healthy society. (And I am aware that, zealotry and fanaticism…
I personally didn't use Guix or interacted with its community in any way. But if GP is right about their attitude, it saddens me. Can't there be a middle ground? Like, promoting free software and still helping people getting things done in the world we live right now?
On the #guix IRC channel you'll often get a private message to direct you to other channels where it's fine to discuss proprietary software and how to make it work on Guix.
I like the blog post and I'm happy for the author, truly. But Guix doesn't sit well with me, and I rarely see this discussed: The Guix zealotry will be their undoing, and frankly this is where Nix shines. I can use Nix at work, at home, with family, with vendors, with binary blobs, on macOS. The community tries very hard to help. With Guix, sure, there's stuff like nonguix, but take a gander at this from the nonguix…
I think much like how there's Nix and NixOS, it's important to draw a line between Guix (the package manager) and GuixSD (the Linux distribution). Guix the package manager, while still not usable at work for me (lack of MacOS support - just 4 of my eng org's ~25 folks use Linux), is full of interesting ideas and features that work well in Linux settings, and can do useful things. It could make interesting dev shells,…
"dead in the water" looks different.
I like the blog post and I'm happy for the author, truly. But Guix doesn't sit well with me, and I rarely see this discussed: The Guix zealotry will be their undoing, and frankly this is where Nix shines. I can use Nix at work, at home, with family, with vendors, with binary blobs, on macOS. The community tries very hard to help. With Guix, sure, there's stuff like nonguix, but take a gander at this from the nonguix…
> I can use Nix at work, at home, with family, with vendors, with binary blobs, on macOS. I'm using Guix for work, at home, my wife has Guix on her gaming laptop with nvidia card, playing games on steam. Nobody has any problems with enabling rpmfusion repo on Fedora, using aur on Arch, adding backports repo for kde or whatever on ubuntu. But as soon as it's nonguix channel it's suddenly a problem. Huh. It's literally…
I'd love to know how the authors financials work. It sounds like a dream to work on something just because it's fun and fulfilling. I have mouths to feed and that dominates much of my career choices. I'm in a small town in a small country so earning a FAANG salary is not an option. I can't save up and go work on a dream project.
If you don’t have mouths to feed then options are massive and life is cheap. For example remote work live in south america type of thing.
Unless you want to retire in a western country, you still have to build up a decent pension. And to reduce costs later, it probably also a good idea to buy a house.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back when the idea of “open source” came around, I thought the same. That the ideals of Free Software were too idealistic, and open source is pragmatic and commercially friendly. Fast forward fifteen years and I am finding that Richard Stallman was right. Despite the commercial success of open source, I have found that usefulness does not always lead to a healthy society. (And I am aware that, zealotry and fanaticism…
I personally didn't use Guix or interacted with its community in any way. But if GP is right about their attitude, it saddens me. Can't there be a middle ground? Like, promoting free software and still helping people getting things done in the world we live right now?
Rules about gently directing folks to nonguix ( https://www.google.com/search?q=nonguix ) resources are there, and people do try to be non-confrontational about it. It's a pretty businesslike vibe though.
i think ideally user groups like System Crafters might be a better introduction for those not steeped in GNU culture: https://systemcrafters.cc/
I liked the article, I wish there were more of these. I've always wondered "who" are the developers who contribute to the open-source projects that I use without much hassle? Why do they do it? How does their life look like? And most importantly, are they OK?
I'm currently living rent-free in an unoccupied student room in Edinburgh (it's out of term here, and I'm living with friends). I'm spending most of this month enjoying the Edinburgh Fringe Festival[0] (I saw 7 shows yesterday). The remainder of my time goes on Open Source/contracting work.
Due to the Fringe, this month is unusual and I'm not satisfied with my open source activity: it's mostly code reviews, force-multiplier work, mentoring and small changes, rather than larger architectural work or features.
Financially: In the UK, the minimum wage is £9.30/hour. This is around $20k/year. Open Source work nets me between $10 and $1.50/h via Open Collective (donation funded), plus I've previously listed my hopes for the next month[1]. I want a multi-monitor setup for my next 2-week project, and that's not feasible to travel with.
Am I OK? I am for now. Although my lifestyle offers me a lot of flexibility, it isn't feasible to start a family or hit the traditional 'life goals' while living in this manner. It's a shame to have to fundraise for small personal projects ([0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Festival_Fringe
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think much like how there's Nix and NixOS, it's important to draw a line between Guix (the package manager) and GuixSD (the Linux distribution). Guix the package manager, while still not usable at work for me (lack of MacOS support - just 4 of my eng org's ~25 folks use Linux), is full of interesting ideas and features that work well in Linux settings, and can do useful things. It could make interesting dev shells,…
The importance of proprietary software is quite overstated in my opinion. I've used stock Guix System on a large number of off-the-shelf servers and not once did I encounter missing drivers. I've used Guix System with linux-libre on old Sun hardware and the newest Dell servers --- never once did I have a problem due to the linux-libre kernel. "dead in the water" looks different.