ROADMAP

   1 -*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-
   2
   3 #+TITLE: Tentative GNU Guix Road Map
   4
   5 Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
   6
   7   Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
   8   are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
   9   notice and this notice are preserved.
  10
  11 The goals of the GNU Guix project are two-fold:
  12
  13   - to build a purely functional package manager, based on Nix and
  14     Guile;
  15
  16   - to use it to build a practical 100% free software distribution of
  17     GNU/Linux and possibly other GNU variants, with a focus on the
  18     promotion and tight integration of GNU components–the GNU system.
  19
  20 Since its inception, the project has gone a long way towards that goal.  Below
  21 is a list of items we want for version "1.0" of the Guix System Distribution.
  22 There will be a few 0.x releases by then to give the new features more
  23 exposure and testing.
  24
  25 You're welcome to discuss this road map on guix-devel@gnu.org or #guix on
  26 Freenode!
  27
  28 * Features scheduled for 1.0
  29
  30   - larger & more robust build farm
  31     + we need a powerful, dedicated front-end
  32     + armhf-linux build machine
  33     + leave Hydra in favor of 'guix publish' + custom code?
  34   - more OS features
  35     + LVM support
  36     + encrypted root
  37     + configurable name service switch
  38     + whole-system unit tests, using VMs
  39   - more service definitions
  40     + mcron, postfix(?), wicd(?), etc.
  41   - better 'guix system'
  42     + 'reconfigure' should be able to restart non-essential services
  43     + support for '--list-generations' and '--delete-generations'
  44   - better 'guix pull'
  45     + using Git to fetch the source instead of re-downloading everything
  46     + build more quickly
  47     + install new .mo files and new manual
  48     + authentication of the Guix source: use signed commits?
  49   - simplified, purely declarative service list in 'operating-system'
  50     + it should be possible to inspect the service instance declarations and
  51       settings
  52   - GUIs
  53     + integrate guix-web?
  54     + guile-ncurses installer?
  55   - 'guix publish'?
  56
  57 * Features for later
  58
  59   - complete GNU/Hurd port
  60   - use content-based addressing when downloading substitutes to reduce
  61     bandwidth requirements
  62     + design nar v2 format where file contents are replaced by their hashes
  63     + leverage /gnu/store/.links
  64   - binary origin tracking
  65     + keep signatures in sqlite.db
  66     + preserve signatures upon import/export
  67   - peer-to-peer distribution of updates (GNUnet?)
  68   - more deterministic builds
  69     + identify & fix sources of non-determinism in builds
  70     + strengthen guix-daemon containers to further increase reproducibility
  71     + trusting-trust: bootstrap with different tool chains
  72     + fixed-point: re-bootstrap until fixed point is reached
  73     + distributed validation: compare contents of store items with others
  74       * resist a hydra.gnu.org compromise
  75   - reproducible containers: mix of 'guix environment' and 'guix system vm'
  76   - execute code with least privilege
  77     + build containers like guix-daemon does
  78     + provide a Plash-like interface in Bash
  79   - daemon rewritten in Guile
  80   - more shepherd integration
  81     + monitor network interfaces and start/stop events based on that
  82     + include a DHCP client written in Scheme