Ok, I’m done — I usually keep away from things like this, because I’m not a perfectly spherical leftist in a vacuum and as such didn’t quite agree with how moderation team worked, that all disagreement is inherently sealioning or that defence companies should’ve been a priori excluded from supporting the project and I don’t really enjoy arguing that “no, not supporting certain policies 100% does not mean I’m some kind of *ist”. But this feels like enough of a do or die that I would probably forever regret had I not said anything.
So.
Having not known what exactly transpired in the background, I would’ve probably put some stock in the moderation team not being objective and transparent enough, which is congruent with the impression of their modus operandi I have witnessed from the outside. I understand that it is sometimes desirable no to disclose certain facts to avoid backlash or harassment, but being judicious about disclosure is something different than having to trust into a process that appears rather “vibe based”. Let’s say that’s bias disclosure — I’m more likely to be biased against the moderation team, than against the SC.
But even assuming that would have been true, ElvishJerrico made a great point that SC appears to have chosen a wrong instrument of disagreeing — instead of building systems that facilitate processes they think are more conducive to “objective moderation”, they seem to have corroborated trying to push against the moderator team directly. Which indeed feels less like a Steering Committee and more like Executive Committee which is not what people voted for.
And the “UNO reverse” about accountability KFearsoff made in their hidden post — while maybe a bit too aggressive — was also on point. If SC is complaining about public accountability of the moderator team, they should also hold themselves to a similarly high standard of accountability, which seems to have been lacking as well, as can be inferred from recent resignation posts and replies in this thread.
And then there’s this kicker mentioned just above: Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey): "The bias goes way beyond online spats. The good news is that Anduril will keep using Nix to build ever more powerful weapons for American dominance regardless of what the fringe "community" people say." | XCancel
Here’s a few choice quotes:
I really hope the nix community can recover from this infiltration of nut jobs and their nonsense
Maybe @PalmerLuckey can help turn the ship around
That’s retarded. Anduril should have been CELEBRATED for supporting nix! And I think it still could be, if @PalmerLuckey and others with a stake in this technology decides to get these nut jobs out.
Anduril will keep using Nix to build ever more powerful weapons for American dominance
Look, I don’t necessarily agree with the way the moderators worked, but I don’t really doubt it was at least an honest expression of their beliefs. Not a trojan horse of soon-to-be-Gilead hegemony. I don’t mind weapons used for defence against those who wish you harm. I mind them, when an off-the-rails buffoon whips their whole country into a chauvinistic frenzy, renaming DoD into a Department of War. And when this buffoon keels over, there’s another in line, with backing of corpofeudalists like Thiel.
So, yeah. I’m not too fond of using the “nazi bar” analogy left and right, but if fascist-adjacent people talk about taking over NixOS and setting it right, then the proverbial nazis certainly got a wee bit too comfortable in the bar. How about no?
NixOS is an European project, and the NixOS Foundation was (and hopefully still be) an European entity. I want it to remain an European project and be a cornerstone of European technological self-sovereignty (kind of staking my NLNet grant application on it xD). As such, I think we should ideally get this house in order and not let it fall under the hegemony of the richest third world country. And if that fails, just cut the losses and build something saner without them.