Re: website: say what Guix is at the very top

[myglc2]

On 01/21/2018 at 23:04 Chris Marusich writes:

> Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> 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