advanced?

[Simon Josefsson]

Hi

I find use of the term 'advanced' wrt Guix confusing and even mildly
excluding, even though it is wide-spread.  What is advanced about Guix?
Can I use it even if I'm not an advanced user?  What do others think?
Is there some historical background for this description of Guix?

How about the attached patch to merely drop this term in some place?

I would happily agree that Guix supports and encourages advanced
features.  But that is not exactly the same as saying Guix itself is
advanced.  If we want to use the term, I think it would be better to
rephrase things as 'Guix supports advanced features such as X, Y and Z'
if we really want to drive home that we are advanced.

I would prefer to use a basic or even simple operating system, and I'd
like to think Guix can be that for me, but maybe everyone has different
preferences, so maybe it doesn't really have to say anything.

(Or we could re-claim a variant of Debian's old slogan 'Guix - a free
universal operating system' but that may be controversial...)

The patch is meant as food for thought as I'm sure I'm missing
something, and it may be a language/cultural thing.

/Simon

From aac8f6d1fb382b9f9120b7cd51dc80e8ef07cc03 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:35:15 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] website: Reduce use of 'advanced' term.

---
 website/apps/base/templates/about.scm | 4 ++--
 website/apps/base/templates/home.scm  | 6 +++---
 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/website/apps/base/templates/about.scm 
b/website/apps/base/templates/about.scm
index 9e2d252..1cf2f65 100644
--- a/website/apps/base/templates/about.scm
+++ b/website/apps/base/templates/about.scm
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
   (theme
    #:title (C_ "webpage title" '("About"))
    #:description
-   (G_ "Guix is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system.
+   (G_ "Guix is a distribution of the GNU operating system.
     Guix is technology that respects the freedom of computer users.
     You are free to run the system for any purpose, study how it
     works, improve it, and share it with the whole world.")
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ system|GNU Hurd|GNU Guix package manager") #\|)
 
       ,(G_
         `(p
-          "Guix System is an advanced distribution of the "
+          "Guix System is a distribution of the "
           ,(G_ `(a (@ (href ,(gnu-url))) "GNU operating system"))
           ".  It uses the "
           ,(G_ `(a (@ (href ,(gnu-url "software/linux-libre"))) "Linux-libre"))
diff --git a/website/apps/base/templates/home.scm 
b/website/apps/base/templates/home.scm
index 7b72da8..8a0bccd 100644
--- a/website/apps/base/templates/home.scm
+++ b/website/apps/base/templates/home.scm
@@ -18,9 +18,9 @@
   "Return the Home page in SHTML using the data in CONTEXT."
   (theme
    #:title (C_ "webpage title"
-               '("GNU's advanced distro and transactional package manager"))
+               '("GNU Guix transactional package manager and distribution"))
    #:description
-   (G_ "Guix is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system.
+   (G_ "Guix is a distribution of the GNU operating system.
    Guix is technology that respects the freedom of computer users.
    You are free to run the system for any purpose, study how it
    works, improve it, and share it with the whole world.")
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ management|Reproducibility") #\|)
        ,(G_
          `(li
            ,(G_ `(b "Liberating."))
-           " Guix is an advanced distribution of the "
+           " Guix is a distribution of the "
            ,(G_ (link-yellow
                  #:label "GNU operating system"
                  #:url (gnu-url "gnu/about-gnu.html")))
-- 
2.30.2

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