I stopped advocating for Nix/NixOS at my workplace and I’m actually glad it didn’t gain much traction yet. Wouldn’t want to be the one who introduced the current shit-show, I’d be embarrassed.
Unfortunately, there’s not a good alternative to Nix/NixOS right now (Guix comes close, but it’s not for me) and I’ve already invested a lot of time into this, otherwise I’d also consider jumping ship completely.
There’s the rub - I think many folks share that sentiment, but might disagree strongly about who the offending parties are.
All the recent noise certainly doesn’t suggest a consensus, yet those who claim to speak for “the community” seem incredibly interested in discrediting anyone with different opinions. (Even the very bland opinion that we in a time of contentious and divisive politics, and that top-down efforts to enforce ideological conformity is bad for Nix - or any other project maintained by a diverse, global community.) Suggestions that people can’t disagree in good faith - they can only be “concern trolls” or “fomenting division” - are similarly disturbing.
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Everyone will have a positive opinion of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) defending his/her country and values, or at least have a negative opinion on the one menacing his/her country and values.
For a worldwide community like NixOS, that makes any association with a specific side controversial.
I’m personally European and I wish our MIC was stronger against the Russian invasion, but that’s not the point.
I still want Russians to contribute, but I don’t want the Russian army sponsoring NixOS. And I’m sure they wouldn’t like a western army doing the same.
I’m so sad this debate is hurting this community so much.
I wish Anduril could realize that and cease all relation by themselves because it seems impossible to do it from the other side.
I’m profoundly uncomfortable with the MIC, but I don’t see what negatives taking funding from it bring.
The beauty of open source is harnessing the efforts of everyone, including possibly your worst enemies.
I don’t plan on quitting the nix community. But I am grateful to @marsam for the work and contributions. I wish that we would have collectively succeeded in figuring out how to be a community together in a way that made you feel welcome and appreciated, instead of compelled to leave. Same for others who have left or are planning to leave. These are heavy times in the world for everyone. Let’s try to keep an open heart, treat each other with dignity and respect. It’s not too late even now to do this.
It’s incredible that Nixpkgs even has contributors like marsam. We just lost a contributor like many projects never get.
This fracture hurts.
Yeah, the so-called “neutral position” on MIC sponsorship and lack of elaboration on Eelco’s potential conflict of interests between Nix foundation/DetSys/Likely DetSys and*ril contract has me looking for a way out of depending on Nix and NixOS.
I assume many others are still here and looking for a way out or near their breaking point.
At this point, I don’t think it matters that some people don’t see a problem with accepting money from a MIC.
At this point, it’s just a fact that some people do see a problem.
I don’t think anything good can come from arguing on this, no one will change opinion here, and the debate won’t go away.
The level at which the discussion should happen now, is whether it is worth it.
Is this money good enough to break the community so much that some top contributors are leaving and others are getting banned?
I think that’s the real and only question now.
And I think the obvious answer is no, by a long shot.
I hope it’s clear to Anduril themselves and that they will drop the sponsorship as it is a net negative now.
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It seems to me that the community has some major problems regardless of how this particular issue is resolved.
The question is, what does Nixos stand for, politically?
There is no way to unask that question now, and no way to answer it without splitting the community.
The monorepo discussion was off-topic, and I’ve split it off into its own topic.
Well obviously we would not make them leave, and we not disagree with them, they believe they disagree with the remaining people it seems, and even if we did disagree that is no reason to believe that their work is bad and make them leave, but if they do want to go because of a value system disagreement, they serve to increase the ecosystem.
The wonderful thing is that they can fork off and we are the better for it - more distro choice.
Ah, sorry, this sounded a bit like “if they don’t like it, nobody is forcing them to stay” instead of trying to talk about our problems.
I’m not against a fork, but I think it should be in last resort, since if we fork every single time there is the slightest disagreement, we would end up all alone in our own corner and never get anywhere.
And I’m not sure “more distro choice” is always better when each one has a lot of work to do, like managing a lot of pull requests like we do. I kinda like the guix vs nixos since both approach are pretty different and the best features could cross-pollinate. 2 almost identical nixos distro sounds a bit like a waste of resource, but maybe there is no other choice.
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The fact that people on the other side of the issue aren’t making dramatic pull requests to announce that they are leaving, or flagging every comment that is not 100% consistent with their own political perspective does not mean that they don’t care about nix, what is happening now, or exist in smaller numbers.
One literally must make a pull request to leave, e.g., the maintainers list of nixpkgs. Decades of work and tens of thousands of commits are walking with those people out the door and you dismiss their departure as “dramatic”. Your sweeping remark about their “political perspective” is transparently a reflection of your own. I have seen hundreds of people sign open letters against, e.g., Andruil sponsorship, and one person sign an open letter in favor. Your reply deals in false equivalence and empty “both sides” rhetoric.
I have seen hundreds of people sign open letters against, e.g., Andruil sponsorship, and one person sign an open letter in favor. Your reply deals in false equivalence and empty “both sides” rhetoric.
Wait, do you actually not see the obvious confounding factors in the comparison that you are making? One side is mostly happy with the status quo and the foundation and just wants the community to stay together, put aside any political differences that may exist, and focus on making nixpkgs great. The other side is really unhappy about the Anduril sponsorship, and wants to align the community around a narrower set of values (anti-MIC, aggressively DEI to the point of allocating foundation seats to minorities, want the original author to step down from having any influence anywhere).
The opposing contingent is not really organized around any particular set of ideological principles, other than they generally do not like the direction of the current moderation team. There are even people like me in this contingent (squarely left of center, not necessarily a fan of all aspects of the MIC, and even willing to acknowledge that there may be some real problems with eelco’s conduct).
How can you possible think that the lack of an open letter expressing opposition is good evidence that there is not a significant contingent which opposes the sentiments expressed in the one that does exist?
You’re also conveniently ignoring the other pieces of evidence that do not suit your narrative (e.g. reddit, countless posts here on discord etc.)
Am I correctly understanding that you are assuming that the silent majority is in opposition to the open letters?
That’s… quite creative.