This framing is misleading in my opinion. This isn’t about impatience; it’s about the future of Nix and preventing commercial control. Furthermore, there aren’t just “three options” like you point out, that’s a false dilemma. The real true option is community consensus, honoring open governance. It takes longer, but it’s more sustainable for both us and DetSys.
The assertion that “DNix is open source” is a half-truth in my eyes. While some components may be available, the determinate-nixd daemon remains closed source. This is a textbook example of an open core model, leveraging the goodwill of the community while locking down core functionality for commercial gain.
Furthermore, the linked PRs paint a clear picture of Determinate Systems’ strategy. Actively developing key features (like flake-schemas and configurable-flakes, and in the case of configurable-flakes there’s no PR even open upstream yet!) in their commercial fork while allowing those same features to stagnate upstream isn’t a coincidence. It’s a calculated move to incentivize users, especially businesses, to adopt their proprietary solution.
Acting like that this is just another fork like the such of Lix ignores network effects and the huge resource imbalances between the projects. DetSys brands their fork “stable/enterprise,” creating a two-tiered system with commercial incentives.
Examine the linked PRs! Features like flake-schemas are stalled upstream while actively developed and pushed in their commercial fork. This isn’t just negligence, it’s putting profit over community benefit.
Calling community concerns “fear” and “silly” is dismissive and completely misses their legitimate criticisms. We want a community project, not a corporate project, shall I remind you that this was one of the points bought up in the Save Nix Together letter? Additionally, Eelco Dolstra’s position as both the co-founder of Determinate Systems and a prominent member of the Nix team creates an irreconcilable conflict of interest. He has a massive, disproportionate amount of power.
If this model continues forward. This creates a harmful loop of ‘trust’ and closed “open-source” products with nothing but downsides for the community as a whole.
I also want to agree with what the other says that this looks like a case of EEE to me.
- Embrace: Integrate into the Nix ecosystem.
- Extend: Introduce proprietary features in a commercial fork.
- Extinguish: Make the community version less attractive