project domain name

[fricklerhandwerk]

we observe that people are confused about names in the Nix ecosystem and find it hard to distinguish between its components.

given the goal of easing learning Nix, we should reduce that confusion as much as possible.

proposal:

• match domain names to component names

considerations:

• Nix package manager (Nix) and Nix package collection (nixpkgs) are not used separately at large
  • its possible though and some do it
• NixOS covers a distinct use case, and only ~half of the 2022 survey respondents use NixOS daily
  • @mat reports that most business users are not on NixOS
• Nix is at the core of the ecosystem, everything builds on top and around it

current state:

• nixos.org used for everything
• nixpkgs.org redirects to NixOS/nixpkgs
• nix.store currently redirects to nixos.org
• nix.dev is a separate project owned by @domenkozar, contents used on nixos.org/learn without attribution
• nix.org is currently being squatted on

options:

• use nixpkgs.org for Nix+nixpkgs (current web site), redirect nixos.org to NixOS/nixpkgs
  • contributors more focused on NixOS could set up something more appropriate on their own
• use nix.dev
  • with support from @domenkozar
• buy nix.org
  • with support from Foundation (@edolstra @domenkozar @thufschmitt @grahamc)
• more domain names

related:

• NixOS/nix.dev#290
• https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-homepage/issues/633

@garbas this is a responsibility of the marking team, but intimately concerns documentation w.r.t. consistency and avoiding confusion

[asymmetric]

On buying nix.org, I think a good (and way cheaper) alternative could be buying nix-lang.org. It's what many other languages do.

[fricklerhandwerk]

The Nix ecosystem and the Nix package manager are not really about the Nix language (just as Bazel is not really about Starlark). nix-lang.org would easily make the impression the project is somehow revolving around the configuration language. That would defeat the purpose of reducing confusion.

[asymmetric]

I disagree. Part of the confusion comes from using the same name for the language and the ecosystem, so renaming the language to something like "nix lang" could reduce confusion. Then, controlling the domain is simply a good idea, whatever we decide to do with it. And potentially, it could be a place that hosts the nix-lang manual (or redirect to it)

[fricklerhandwerk]

Part of the confusion comes from using the same name for the language and the ecosystem

This is true and we should address it with NixOS/nix.dev#275.

controlling the domain is simply a good idea, whatever we decide to do with it.

Sure, it just does not help with the issue here.

[davidak]

i think it would be best to have nix.org for the package manager + resources about nixpkgs and nix lang and nixos.org for the linux distribution + deployment tools for it, like nixops

that would solve confusion like reported in https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-homepage/issues/832

[fricklerhandwerk]

marketing team and Foundation board should take over: https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/issues/285

not closing, issue can be migrated.

[fricklerhandwerk]

another argument for having a Nix-package-manager-specific web site is to manage the web rendering of Nix manuals in the Nix repo. Right now the path-level redirects are on nixos-homepage while the anchor-level redirects are on nix. redirects are important to keep existing links alive.

Here are two pull requests that should be in sync, but produce a tail of follow-up work that is highly likely to be missed unless someone remembers to update the redirects on nixos.org once the current master branch reaches a release:

• https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/6863
• https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-homepage/pull/881

Having the Nix web site in the source repo would allow managing redirects without additional effort.

[Ericson2314]

Yeah I want to second that having "NixOS" be the umbrella term for the whole ecosystem is confusing and we should move away from doing that.

[fricklerhandwerk]

@edolstra this is for the board to answer, could you please transfer it to NixOS/nixos-foundation?

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/usability-study-session-2/21400/1

[fricklerhandwerk]

We could even consider renaming the GitHub organization to Nix to match the hopefully-soon-to-be authoritative terminology and better support the (technically and morally correct) narrative that Nix is at the core of the Nix ecosystem. I'd even go as far as proposing to rename the NixOS Foundation to Nix Foundation.

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/landing-page-is-completely-unclear-for-new-users/22990/3