Among functional languages, I wouldn't call nix anywhere close to haskell. As for the free software, sounds like a typical baseless meme I've heard many times.
> sounds like a typical baseless meme I've heard many times
Is it though? I'd probably install GuixSD on a virtual machine if I knew most of the non-free software are used are packaged or at least accepted [1]. This means more users, which means more contributions and it's realistic for the project to go somewhere.
I can give you a baseless opinion I don't have any fact to show for but I don't think it's so hard to see: many GNU projects are very cool but for some reason they fail to reach critical mass and they just seem to grow very slowly (or die a slow death, depending on the point of view.)
1:
> [...] the GNU distribution follow the free software distribution guidelines. Among other things, these guidelines reject non-free firmware, recommendations of non-free software, and discuss ways to deal with trademarks and patents.
There is adoption & attraction of development because software has freedom.
There is adoption & attraction of development because software does not have freedom.
They are not mutually exclusive. gnu, debian, etc are fundamentally driven by the goal of making a completely free operating system, and they would have much much less adoption and development if they weren't. We now have and are gaining more hardware which is completely free. If we don't make software distributions which are completely free, we will never have completely free operating systems, and we won't be encouraging people to use completely free operating systems.
