Aux.computer: An Alternative to the Nix Ecosystem | Hacker News Reader

Aux.computer: An Alternative to the Nix Ecosystem

aux.computer

34 pointsmmarx35 comments

I believe that it's currently best to wait until everyone has had a chance to cool down a bit and then see what state the original Nix project is in. There has certainly been a lot of drama and I don't think it's just a vocal minority that's making the news here, but I also believe that long running open source projects like Nix are pretty resilient. Some folks will leave, some will come back, constructive changes can be made and hopefully we'll all be able to reconcile as much of our differences as is necessary to resume work and collaboration.

The thing that could immediately doom any Nix fork was how many people saw a general movement towards that, and then decided this was their moment to champion whatever pet axe-to-grind they have with the original projects, no matter whether it was technical, social, ideological. They often share these concerns as a criteria they would need in order to adopt or contribute to a fork.

Many such wishes I've seen proposed are big departures and would alienate different sets of people, or pose notable practical/logistical challenges to fulfill. Resources and time are already going to be stretched super thin as it is.

The early days of a community fork, and establishing a sense of fresh unity, are absolutely critical. Anything that divides folks further by way of fractal levels of tribalism merely drains its lifeblood while it's still finding its feet and its identity.

I know of Nix, but I know little about the project itself. Can someone shed some light on the reasons for forking?

https://github.com/KFearsoff/nix-drama-explained has a good summary of what the contention is about.

There's a lot of issues right now around communication, moderation, and community.

- One of the release managers (myself) was banned/suspended [1]

- Attempts to assert control on the board's decision-making by proxy group [2]

- Use of social media to target individuals [3]

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1cd5fod/in_case_im_u...

2: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/objection-to-minority-represen...

3: https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/pull/133

dear goddess, anduril really employs gobshites from the top to the bottom.

As much as I think they overreacted when banning you, it also feels like an overreaction to fork that soon.

I hope a compromise will be found, and that you'll be back on NixOS as soon as possible!

Bro, you should really take the hint soon.

That there's an established clique? I agree.

Wow, is #3 disingenuous.

"Use of social media to target individuals" sounds like some internet personality doxxed you, or sicced their followers on you.

But it looks like... someone linked your own public comments from a Nix Discourse thread, and then the board rejected your bid to join them?

Apparently this Jon Ringer guy has it out for you, as much as anyone else. He keeps sabotaging you and putting words in your mouth. /s

Reading your comments, I'm continually reminded of MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will." It's clear you still haven't educated yourself on the issues around representation, and the distortions of "meritocracy" in a world where we didn't all get to race from the same starting line.

Who is behind this fork?

Hi, I (Jake Hamilton) am.

Though, this is not an effort that can be undertaken by one person. My goal is publishing this page was to create a set of values, goals, and a roadmap for people (like myself) who would otherwise be leaving the Nix ecosystem due to its shortcomings. These values, goals, and roadmap can then be used for alignment to actually make it a reality. I worried that if these things weren't specified up front that people would instead continue arguing in circles about past problems rather than building a solution.

The name, the logo, the values and many important strategic decisions seems to have already been decided, before a public channel of communication has been created.

Was this created by just you, or is there already a team?

This page was created by me. I have tried to capture what I feel are important values that are hopefully shared by others who are leaving or have left Nix. With the values, goals, and roadmap clearly stated, others can join to contribute. Part of the reason I felt this was important was to make sure that anyone who would want to contribute did not feel like there would be some rug pull moment. I wanted to outline exactly what was going to happen and how it was going to be better than what we have currently with Nix so that we can build that vision together.

For reference, I use Nix a lot. I was pushing it pretty hard at Intuit while I worked there.

All my systems are managed with it:

https://github.com/jakehamilton/config

And I have created projects like Snowfall Lib to make working with certain features easier:

https://github.com/snowfallorg/lib

What communication channels do you plan to use for coordination? Forum, discord, IRC, matrix or something else?

A forum is currently being set up so people can start collaborating, but I intend to also create a Matrix space as well for real-time communications.

The Microsoft GitHub requirement is the only reason that I do not contribute to NixPkgs except by sending a mail to a maintainer sometimes. Everything I package stays in my own flakes. If a community arose that hosts its own repo or is hosted at e.g. CodeBerg, I would contribute.

This has been a tough one to figure out. I do not think there is a great answer here. GitHub has a large network of people and the barrier to contributing there is fairly low. Cost is also subsidized greatly by GitHub. Nixpkgs being one of the largest and most active repositories on the entire platform would certainly strain any self-hosted or otherwise unprepared service. However, the benefits of a FOSS git forge with commitments to federation and values similar to this project also exist. Perhaps the answer here is to begin on GitHub to ease initial contributions and concerns over cost and to later transition to something like Codeberg.

Migrating off of GitHub once established is very hard in practice. That is why so many projects have stayed there. But asking people to make a Microsoft GitHub account when your Goal 1. is 'Independent' starts the project off with not following its own goals.

People might be hesitant to open an account at the hoster of the aux.computer infrastructure, so aux.computer could offer the option of logging in with a Microsoft GitHub account.

The Linux kernel, GNOME, KDE, Debian, Blender and more host they own forge. It's not a very heavy service. Running aux.computer infrastructure on aux.computer OS is a good showcase of the project.

Nixpkgs used to live outside GitHub. Migration to GitHub massively increased incoming contributions. Frankly, I don't think migrating away or choosing not to use it would be worth it.

This will never take off as it is exclusionary on purpose.

taps sign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Why now call it Snowflakes given:

    Kindness
    The project should be welcoming and a safe place for people to participate.

I'm puzzled how overly sensitive the new generation of humans is! This the the opposite of stoicism and resilience!

Seeing an issue, working to resolve it, then making the environment better for others takes resilience. Stoicism and resilience does not mean rolling over and accepting bad things because problems in your life are not solvable.

There's a vast difference between "working to solve it" and "forking it"!

The younger generations do not get the concept of "respect"! They need to respect those who've done the most work and not feel entitled that a small contribution to something makes them equal rights owners!

This is not some sudden issue people are overreacting to by forking. The discussions have been going on for months/years depending on which specific issue you're taking about. What you see now is the culmination of "we've tried to fix this, but the only remaining option we see is to fork". The "younger generations do not get ..." is a silly trope. https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-a...

If you're actually interested in the non-forking ways to fix it, what are your views on the relevant RFCs proposed and the outcome of those? What's the process you're thinking of that people have missed so far?

I agreed with OpenTofu as then, without any doubt, a fork was needed. I agreed with the fork of Redis - there's no doubt there was no other way to make things "work out." I agreed with OpenSearch fork as well! But forking Nix is a sign of immaturity or lack of emotional resilience and nothing more! Any issue between reasonable people could be resolved by a productive dialog. If a person is intelligent enough to have such a vast contribution to such a great project, then they are a reasonable person, and a dialog is possible. "Where there's a will, there's a way."

I agree, everyone should be walking across burning coals barefoot every day to get to work, let alone volunteer their time to an open source project.

Maybe they should find another project to contribute to. And, yeah, this is how we dance in Bulgaria [0] - on embers!

[0]: https://nestinari.bg/en/history/

Why would they find another project? Are you under the assumption these are not established members of the Nix community complaining, but some "invaders" as alluded to in the RFC 175 supplements? Because that's untrue. Many have been putting up with the deteriorating situation for years, very stoic, but not healthy or fun.

Many had issues with Linus Torvalds as well - there's nothing new under the sun!

you're complaining that they literally started another project to contribute to.

There's a difference about "starting anew" and "forking." As I mentioned, many projects have no option due to licensing changes, but they should try harder to fix the personal issues.

how old are you, nikita, 12?

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