project domain name

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 and 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
  • @MMesch 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.dev is an official documentation resource
• nix.org is currently being squatted on

options:

• use nixpkgs.org for Nix+Nixpkgs (current web site), redirect nixos.org to NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/nixos
  • contributors more focused on NixOS could set up something more appropriate on their own
• use nix.dev
  • with support from @domenkozar
  • done, but currently only for the purpose of serving a documentation resource
• 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

Start by reviewing the current nixos.org site and the listed domain states, then read the related NixOS/nix.dev#290 and nixos-homepage#633 discussions. Compare the proposed domain arrangements and linked survey and discussion context; done means the project has a decided, consistent mapping between domains and Nix ecosystem components.