The unusually high amount of drama in NixOS is one of the reasons I have been hesitant to start using it. Jon Ringer (a former contributor) posted a giant video [0] outlining his history with the project and how he left / was forced out (amongst several other key folks). For the record, I don't know how to characterize his exit, only that there was an absolute ton of drama around it that wasn't really related to even any technical aspect.