If we combine these two sets of data^1 we obtain a fascinating result^2.

46% of all code out there, in every app, is maintained by hobbyists

13,8% is maintained by “I sometimes get a bit of pocket money for my code”

40% of all code out there is maintained by an industry-paid person

So, nearly 60% of all code being actively shipped in an app or product in the wild is hobbyist-maintained open-source.

See also this discussion on lobste.rs on the economics of the average (as in median) open source project:

https://lobste.rs/s/ftwkvo/hobbyist_maintainer_economic_gravity

To sum up, apparently most open source projects are small, and aren't funded as paid work. And they matter because of their number, which has the effect that they make up a large part of all software in use.

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[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

Guix vs Nix will be an interesting example. Nix has a way bigger user base right now but it has the whole Anduril & governance issue.

Guix has a way better configuration language and one can learn in an afternoon enough to use it productively.

What is your experience with guix like?

I am mainly using Guix as a package manager on top of Debian stable (and on top of my Arch install running in a vm). I use it mostly to have a reproducible development environment for my free time projects (which use Rust and Guile), and it works very nicely to that. It is also certainly a nice way to distribute software as source, with very little effort (just putting the own package definutions into a channel repo).

Does getting away from systemd affect things?

I have also started to run it directly on my PC as a base system. After replacing the NVidia GeForce card with an AMD Radeon one, I had no issues.

The configuration and init system work well - the only thing I would have to do is to write my own stumpwm(*) init script, which I didn't have time for, so I use, as a fallback, i3wm and Gnome or XFce2, what I use at work, too.

(*) Stumpwm is a highly configurable tiling window manager written in Common Lisp. Similar to i3, but using key chords, and window manager actions are just lisp functions one can program and extend - they are called via key chords like Emacs commands.

In respect to the init systems, I have to confess that I am mostly agnostic. As long as it works, I am fine. I think Guix is the more modern and better approach.