Nix provides the largest collection of software packages on the planet including geospatial software maintained by Nix Geospatial Team. It is multi platform, runs on any Linux and even on a Mac. In addition, Nix can build per-project isolated environments, container images, run services and provide many other unique features not found anywhere else. Nix environments and services are configured declaratively (tell me what you want, Nix will know how to get there). They are reproducible and Nix provides full control of the dependency graph from kernel level up.

Currently, adoption of Nix doesn't correlate with the number of unique features it provides, mostly because of the steep learning curve.

Fortunately, with new tools in a Nix ecosystem it is not a problem anymore. I want to demonstrate geospatial-nix.today, a web interface which provides user friendly access to all packages and features of Nix mentioned above and will present the arguments why we should seriously consider using this technology for our software.

This talk is follow up on my previous FOSS4G talk about features and potential benefits of using Nix technology stack for geospatial use cases.