Consider getting funding for better support

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Since April I am now using NixOS and tried to build a couple of own packages.

In principle, the nix base is straightforward, however it just happens that you run into issues when trying to build packages for nix. To the best of my understanding there are in most cases only small steps missing in order to make things work, but often just no one is there for help.

I see this as the biggest drawback of using nix currently: The support is too bad.
Such missing support then will deter even people like me who are interested as far as using nixos and really wanting to see nix going forward. It is today that I lost hope in nix because another build failed, and I know it does not make a difference whether I post a question for help here on discourse.nixos.org or not…

If the nix community has some free resources, please consider to take this serious and spend money for someone who can spend significant time supporting others here on discourse.nixos.org.
For my perspective, this is rank 1 priority.

Thank you for listening

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You can always ask on the nixOS matrix channels or on the (unofficial) discord. There are usually people online who are willing to help.

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Interesting perspective. I can’t recall seeing any community distro/SW paying people to provide free support. The foundation doesn’t pay any people now IIRC, and IMO the suggestion to pay someone to maintain infrastructure should come first. (It’s critical, so it sucks when it gets broken and people only fix it “on their free time”.)

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I’ve gotten help several times on this forum actually. Next time you get stuck try posting a topic here or using Matrix as has been mentioned.

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I offer Nix office hours, either scheduled individually or a best-effort on Fridays. (General Nix Office Hours)

There are also Nix consultancies, if you’d like to pay for help.

Lastly, the time and effort of all the contributors and volunteers is their own. Donations to NixOS Foundation (or some of the the other initiatives that have been announced, eg. for better Darwin support) would be appreciated, or you can convince the organizations and companies you are involved with to provide more substantial support along the lines of what you suggest.

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Thank you all for seeing my perspective and showing other ways of how to get help. That is really amazing.

My experience about support being critical and fund worthy comes from using astro static site builder lately, which have an unbelievable awesome support with people especially looking at support questions being raised. Probably they also have a business running behind it, but still, it showed me how important this can be.

I am not into the funding possibilities which are there for nixos or open-source communities in general, but I am hoping that indeed some organizations and infrastructure exist for funding.

Funding of support also makes intuitive sense for those who would give the money, as they know to support the entire community by it and can enjoy the founded support themselves. Whether supporting new features or supporting support is more important is probably a matter of taste. For me currently, and seeing how old nixos is, supporting support seems more important to me.

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