Nix is an open source build system, a configuration management system, and a mechanism for deploying software, focused on reproducibility.
It is the basis of an ecosystem of exceptionally powerful tools – including Nixpkgs, the largest, most up-to-date software repository in the world, and NixOS, a Linux distribution that can be configured fully declaratively.
Nix exists since 2003 and today is leveraged and relied upon by many professionals and organisations who recognise its value in the software development lifecycle.
The [NixOS Foundation](https://nixos.org/community/#foundation) was founded in 2015 to shepherd the Nix ecosystem, and is dedicated to supporting volunteer teams in their activities.
The Nix documentation team was established in mid 2022 in order to ease learning Nix for beginners and support community efforts in that direction.
From the perspective of the NixOS Foundation, Google Season of Docs can help the Nix documentation team to substantially improve a crucial part of the Nix onboarding experience in a concerted effort.
1. Design a learning journey on the basis of the [2022 usability studies](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/usability-studies/21404) and sketched in [our vision statement](https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#vision).
- Gather input from community experts on their preferred sequence of introducing topics
At the end of the writing phase we will run another round of usability studies concerning the orientation phase of onboarding, and compare with existing results.
Specifically, we will evaluate, based on a set of pre-determined tasks:
- In how far beginners understand the purpose of and follow the proposed curriculum
- How well beginners are able to address their questions using the available materials
We will also inspect community metrics before the beginning and after the end of the project in order to estimate the change in adoption of certain skills.
They can be expected to be strongly influenced by accompanied communication by the [Nix marketing team](https://nixos.org/community/teams/marketing), depending on that team's capacity.
The experience with last year's development of the [Nix language tutorial](https://nix.dev/tutorials/nix-language) may serve as a frame of reference.
## Budget
Our main budgeting consideration is that the financial support should enable work that would otherwise be impossible.
We consider the greatest leverage of a funded project to be the increased visibility into activities around documentation and the organisational learning we expect to happen in the process.
Additionally, we see our diverse community as our greatest collective asset.
A setup that enables beginners to grow into proficient contributors, domain experts sharing their experience with the whole community, and engaged volunteers taking first steps into the professional world – to us this promises the greatest long-term payoff.
Since creating documentation is much less "writing things down" and much more "building and disseminating knowledge", we decided to focus on paid support by domain experts, who shall guide activities, mentor contributors and share knowledge, and supervise progress.
With a symbolic compensation we intend to encourage those contributors who otherwise would not step up to participate, to take the opportunity for learning Nix and developing their technical writing skills, while creating lasting value for all users of the Nix ecosystem.
The amounts will be adjusted according to the Google Summer of Code [Purchasing Power Parity table](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/help/student-stipends), depending on the country of origin of applicants.
## Timeline
We plan for four project phases, each taking roughly a month.
The evaluation phase is for [measuring project success](#measure-of-success), reflecting on what has been done, compiling a final report, and debriefing.
The main concern is guiding the curriculum design, and introducing participants to the Nix ecosystem's particularities.
We can expect issues to emerge in the process, and the Nix expert will be responsible for addressing them within the project's timeline as far as possible.