The idea of flakes is to also replace channels. In a flake, one can choose what nixpkgs url to use. When not working with a local flake, one can invoke e.g.
If one wants a version from 20.09, one needs to use
$ nix shell nixpkgs#hello --override-input nixpkgs github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-20.09
It would be convenient if there would be registry entries for all stable versions so one could write
nix shell nixos-20.09#hello
We do need to draw a line here because we can't add all branches of whatever project. Also, it's not bad having to learn to use override-input. And, it prevents users from relying specifically on nixos-20.09 in a flake.nix where maybe they should not.
I do not know whether we should add the stable versions or not, but I can imagine here the convenience outweighs the disadvantages.
The idea of flakes is to also replace channels. In a flake, one can choose what nixpkgs url to use. When not working with a local flake, one can invoke e.g.
If one wants a version from 20.09, one needs to use
It would be convenient if there would be registry entries for all stable versions so one could write
We do need to draw a line here because we can't add all branches of whatever project. Also, it's not bad having to learn to use
override-input. And, it prevents users from relying specifically onnixos-20.09in aflake.nixwhere maybe they should not.I do not know whether we should add the stable versions or not, but I can imagine here the convenience outweighs the disadvantages.