“Future of Guix” panel

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello Guix!

We’ll close FOSDEM with a discussion on the future of Guix and GuixSD:

  https://fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/futureofguix/

Attached is a semi-structured list of topics that came to mind.  Please
feel free to bring your own, either at the event (this Sunday), or on
this list, or on IRC during the event maybe?

Ludo’.

#+TITLE: Future of Guix (panel)
#+STARTUP: content hidestars

https://fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/futureofguix/
Sunday, 16:30, K.4.601

* Organization

** sharing the work load

*** security updates

*** build farm

*** web site, posts, videos, etc.

*** handling branches: starting & merging ‘core-updates’, ‘staging’

*** release management: setting a date, choosing what goes in, publishing

*** GSoC mentoring

** review

*** getting more reviewers

*** facilitating the process

*** encouraging newcomers

** funding

*** development

  - how do we get core & maintenance work funded?
  - how do we get funding for new areas (like ‘guix deploy’)?

*** infrastructure (build farm)

  - sustaining infrastructure growth and maintenance
  - Jan. 2016 crowdfunding was enough for a start

* Publicity, outreach

** high-performance computing (HPC)

*** competition: EasyBuild, Spack, Singularity, Shifter

*** stories: MDC, Utrecht, Brisbane

*** possible cooperation in the near future

** reproducible science

*** how to help projects such as [[https://rescience.github.io/][ReScience]]?

*** make reproducible free software stacks the obvious choice

** containers, deployment

*** competition: Docker, Kubernetes, NixOps

*** stories: gov.uk (Chris Baines), bayfront.guixsd.org

** hold Guix User Gatherings (GUGs)?

* Code

** 1.0 in 2017! (see roadmap in 
[[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/guix-ghm-20160818.pdf][GHM 2016 talk]])

*** ‘guix pull’ and channels

*** Git checkout authentication

*** performance & usability improvements

*** GuixSD graphical installer (John)

*** self-hosted infrastructure

**** Cuirass

**** ‘guix publish’ improvements

**** build machines running GuixSD

*** bug fixes

** next big thing: ‘guix deploy’

** scalability

*** better importers & updaters

*** better ‘guix lint -c cve’

** reproducibility: reach 90% or so, and measure

** bootstrapping

*** reduce the size of our bootstrap binaries (Bournish? Mes? …)

*** “do something” about compilers that cannot be bootstrapped