On Community in Nix
determinate.systems
determinate.systems
- Anduril dropped as NixCon sponsor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37418351
- Open letter against MIC sponsorship: https://nixos-users-against-mic-sponsorship.github.io/
- Open letter in support of MIC sponsorship: https://nixos-users-for-western-mil-and-govs.github.io/
- Updated sponsorship policy: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-event-sponsor...
- Open letter asking Eelco Dolstra to step down from NixOS Foundation and Nix team: https://save-nix-together.org/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40166912
To address this, a RFC was opened yesterday:
https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/175
(Ironically, the authors got banned right after opening the PR)
If you simply all agreed with me we wouldn't have all these important community members getting in fights and leaving.
"I am just one member of the five-member Nix team and hold no more formal authority than the others in determining the direction of the team"
Thought the inclusion of the word "formal" here was was pretty funny.
Both the letter and this response are pretty disappointing. The letter was too long and didn't make a great case even if it was ultimately probably right in many ways. And Eelco did not attempt to understand the writers, choosing to simply deny every single thing, which is not great leadership.
Even if he did nothing wrong at all, he makes no attempt to reach out to people who feel he has, to reconcile with them. To people who feel, justifiable or not, excluded he simply says: I've always done my best to create an inclusive environment. He doesn't seem to comprehend that one can try, but fail.
For someone with some interest in Nix but never having tried it, this has done enough to turn me off it for a few years. Who knows if it will still be around by then, considering the leadership and community.
Isn't this just stating the obvious? I think the same would be true no matter who it was or what was said. Indeed nobody would feel the need to discuss something if we were all in agreement already. I don't think people should necessarily fault someone merely for having an opinion that differs from yours, which IMO is exactly what this letter is about, and I don't even see what opinions are actually different to be honest.
> Thought the inclusion of the word "formal" here was was pretty funny.
Not sure why, you don't give any reasoning, but ok.
> choosing to simply deny every single thing
I didn't get that from their response at all. It sounds to me like the open letter should have listed specific action items they wanted to see, if they wanted to be taken seriously.
> Even if he did nothing wrong at all
Doesn't this by definition mean he doesn't need to do anything else? I'm confused.
> he makes no attempt to reach out to people
Which people where? Who was wronged and how? Where was that documented? I don't understand how you can expect someone to "reach out" to invisible people who won't make their concerns heard clearly (this letter is not that IMO).
> He doesn't seem to comprehend that one can try, but fail
Same as above... I don't see where specific wrongdoing is called out, or any suggestions for improvement.
> this has done enough to turn me off it
What is "this"? How has this directly affected you? To me there is no "this" or even a "him" without very specific concerns called out.
Yes, which is why it was a stupid thing to say. If our enemies simply capitulated we wouldn't have to wage this war.
>Not sure why, you don't give any reasoning, but ok.
Because one of the concerns in the letter is that he has _informal_ authority. By the way, if you go to https://nixos.org/community/teams/nix/ it says "Team lead" so he does have more formal authority. A title he added himself by the way.
>It sounds to me like the open letter should have listed specific action items they wanted to see, if they wanted to be taken seriously.
The letter said they want Eelco to give up his leadership roles. Then it lists why, which you don't need to read the contents for, just the table of contents is enough. So if he doesn't want to resign, there is for example "Ignoring people then relitigating", which he could work on trying not to do. "Avoiding giving away authority" is another. There are many items like this. Not resigning and choosing to just work on specific concerns may not make all the signatories happy, but it would probably be acceptable to some.
>Doesn't this by definition mean he doesn't need to do anything else? I'm confused.
Yes it does mean that he needs to do something. Sometimes in a leadership position people question what you're doing, and there are ways to address their concerns without changing what you're doing. If you succeed then your community can stay together. Most projects benefit from being larger.
>I don't understand how you can expect someone to "reach out" to invisible people who won't make their concerns heard clearly (this letter is not that IMO).
I mean reach out in a sense of: acknowledging that some things may need to change in a way that reaches people. For example in a blog post. I don't mean send people private messages. I don't understand what you mean by "invisible people". Clearly Eelco wrote a response to a long letter that has signatories. So which invisible people?
>I don't see where specific wrongdoing is called out, or any suggestions for improvement.
I think you're being deliberately obtuse. Specific wrongdoing is called out in the original letter and you may not agree that it is wrongdoing but it is specific. You may disagree that improvement is necessary or that the suggestions are any good but that doesn't make the suggestions not exist.
>What is "this"? How has this directly affected you? To me there is no "this" or even a "him" without very specific concerns called out.
"This" is drama. It has not directly affected me because I don't use Nix, but the project requires contributors who for example package software. Seeing the #4 contributor to Nixpkgs, and several others leave, as well as the indefinite "experimental" status of Flakes, makes me question the longevity of the project.
He was actually #3. The nominal #1 'contributor' is a CI bot that auto-updates packages.
Yet this post is really tone deaf. At this point, this is beyond the sponsorship, but recognizing that the community is split and addressing this issue. Important contributors have been banning each other on different communities, at least one important contributor has decided to step out of the maintainer role.
I'm a nobody on the nix community so is not like it even matters if I support Eelco or not, but this kind of response actually makes me worried about the future of the community.
The dire state of NixOS's moderation culture