Hello,

Please find below project suggestions for GNU Guix for this year’s GSoC.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

<h3 id="guix"><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/guix">Guix</a></h3>

<p>GNU Guix is a purely functional package manager, and associated free
software distribution, for the GNU system.  In addition to standard
package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and
roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and
garbage collection.</p>

<p><strong>Contact:</strong> bug-guix@gnu.org (to subscribe, see the
  <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-guix">list-info page</a>).<br/>
<strong>Mentors:</strong> <a href="mailto:ludo@gnu.org">Ludovic Court&egrave;s</a>

<h4>Supporting binary package distribution through GNUnet</h4>

<p>
GNU Guix provides a transparent binary/source deployment model.  A
server can claim: “hey, I have the binary for
<tt>/nix/store/v9zic07iar8w90zcy398r745w78a7lqs-emacs-24.3</tt>!”, where the
base32 string uniquely identifies a build process.  If you trust that
server to provide genuine binaries, then you can grab them instead of
building Emacs locally.
</p>

<p>
The “traditional model” has been to have a build farm build and serve
binary packages.  In that model, users trust the build farm to provide
authentic binaries.
</p>

<p>
The project aims to provide a <emph>practical</emph> decentralization
distribution mechanism for binary packages, using <a
href="/software/gnunet">GNUnet’s file sharing service</a>.  In that
model, users would be able to automatically share binaries they have
built locally, and to install binaries built by other users.  This is
part of a broader goal of <emph>disintermediation</emph> among users,
and between users and upstream software developers.
</p>

<p>
Problems to be solved <a
href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2013-03/msg00085.html">include</a>
the authentication of binary packages, user privacy, and the development
of a user interface that makes it trivial to contribute package build
results.
</p>