I'm much more interested in guix since it has all the same upsides but uses scheme instead of a weird NIH language, and it also has some standards when it comes to the licenses of the packages. (Nix disappointingly gives you the Adobe Flash plugin when you ask it to install Firefox, etc.) Still grateful for the solid foundation Nix provides.

> it has all the same upsides but uses scheme instead of a weird NIH language

The packaging language is great, but I agree that it would make more sense to embed it in an existing language like Scheme.

Is guix compatible with nixpkgs, or do all package definitions need to be translated into scheme first?

> Nix disappointingly gives you the Adobe Flash plugin when you ask it to install Firefox, etc.

Really? I've had Nix refuse to install stuff, telling me to override the "allowUnfree" option if I want it to work (this happens when a Haskell project doesn't specify a license in its cabal file, for example).

I use NixOS, so maybe the defaults are different from standalone Nix.

> I've had Nix refuse to install stuff, telling me to override the "allowUnfree" option if I want it to work

Oh awesome. My experience with this was quite a while ago; it sounds like they may have fixed it since then. Glad to hear it.

>Is guix compatible with nixpkgs, or do all package definitions need to be translated into scheme first?

They have to be translated into Scheme, but we have a 'guix import nix' tool to assist in that.

Come join us for a hack sometime. It would be cool to get some of your elisp projects packaged.