Proposal: Update the NixOS logo for Ukrainian Flag Day (23 August)

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Hello,

Today, 23 August, is Ukrainian Flag Day (Day of the National Flag (Ukraine) - Wikipedia)
In the same spirit as previous symbolic initiatives (for example, the rainbow logo for Pride Month), I would like to propose updating the NixOS homepage logo to display the Ukrainian flag colours for this day. The European Commission also raised the flag in Brussels and updated their logo for the occasion.

Image

(source)

Such a gesture could show solidarity with Ukraine and its people in the current context, demonstrate that the NixOS community is attentive to international events and capable of expressing symbolic support when it matters, ensure some balance in how symbolic dates are highlighted.

Even though I stepped back from contributing directly to nixpkgs maintainership (maintainers: drop `drupol` by drupol · Pull Request #435310 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub), I remain part of the wider community and wish to help improve processes where possible. One does not prevent the other, isn’t it !

Would it be possible to create a clickable temporary logo variant for this occasion that would link to the wikipedia page or a new blog post? Even a simple adaptation of the flake coloured in blue and yellow would already send a strong, supportive message.

Thank you for considering this

edits:

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That is today. Given that for the rainbow logo it took months from idea to completion, results of this discussion are likely to only be relevant starting next year

(NB not sure what’s the deal about posting it in three places, not sure where to reply now)

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I’m not one of those software-shouldn’t-be-political types - quite the opposite - but I think it would be a disaster to start supporting political causes on an ad hoc basis. Real guaranteed disaster - perhaps not immediately but think of all the things that could go wrong, including, just for starters, encouraging grandstanding and untold numbers of schisms.

(In my opinion diversity is different because it’s something that this community already has a consensus about, although even that could be open to debate, and has been debated in the past in very painful ways. Similarly for the problematic nature of the MIC. And there are other political issues where this community really CLEARLY has a consensus, like the importance of open source. In my opinion those things are fine.)

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You are right, today might be too late for this year. My suggestion was indeed spontaneous and tied to the date, but nothing prevents us from preparing in advance for next year (or for other symbolic dates that might come up).

At the same time, it feels a bit sad that after more than 3 years of war in Ukraine, a simple gesture of solidarity such as updating the logo has not already been considered. And honestly, I very much hope that by next year there will be no need to make such a proposal, because hopefully the war will finally be over.

For me, what matters most is the principle: if the project has already shown it is open to symbolic logo changes (like Pride Month), then perhaps we could make the process a bit more structured and transparent so that future opportunities don’t depend on ad hoc timing.

I completely understand the concern about opening the door to endless political requests or schisms; that’s a very valid point.

For me, the idea is not to turn NixOS into a platform for every political cause, but to be consistent with symbolic initiatives we’ve already done. The Pride logo showed that we are willing to make visual changes to show solidarity. If we do it in one case, then I think it is fair to at least discuss whether other causes of broad, international significance could also be acknowledged.

I also feel it is important to note that the war in Ukraine is not just a symbolic issue… it is a real, ongoing conflict that has already taken countless lives and continues to affect millions of people. In that sense, one could argue it carries even more weight than purely symbolic causes.

That is why my intent is not to create division, but to encourage a transparent process where such decisions are discussed openly, with clear boundaries and consensus, rather than being handled ad hoc or in a unilateral way.

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As a general principle, I personally don’t think we should be doing things like this. It leads to distractions, drama, and churn. And most often it becomes a case where good intentions lead to worse outcomes.

We have plenty of ecosystem projects, we need to encourage participation in maintenance, and engage in improvement efforts - those should be the focus for raising awareness - things that are the core purpose of the foundation. Our purpose is not to show support for various causes or to lend symbolic solidarity with international events.

The purpose of the foundation is: to develop, propagate, and promote the adoption of a purely functional software deployment model and to support open-source projects that implement that model, as well as other activities that relate to, pertain to, and/or can be conducive to the foregoing in the broadest sense. - Foundation

I can see why the European Commission would do this, or why a multitude of other organizations would as well, and I would even support a Nix-specific group that would want to form for this purpose and support various causes or raise awareness of issues, but that is not the role of the Foundation itself. While I do happen to support this symbolic effort, but I don’t think our Foundation logo, frontpage, or redirection is the appropriate venue.

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Correct me if I’m wrong but are you referring to pride month as a “purely symbolic cause”? This comment fails to consider the brutal history of people who have identified queer and the treatment they have faced for a very very long time. It’s not just a symbolic cause, it’s a symbol of solidarity and strength for a people who have experienced so much hardship.

There is also the war of Israel vs. Palestine. I’m going to willfully avoid bringing up my personal opinion about it, but I think it’s pretty much relevant for the same reasons that you mention the war in Ukraine. Should the NixOS Foundation hold a specific stance about this as well? What about other future wars?

War in particular is one of those things where no one wins. While it’s happening, all sides are hurting and all sides are losing. People lose their families, their friends, and they don’t see the grander scope of their war, and their issues. Russia v. Ukraine is a good example, so is Israel v. Palestine. All sides experience loss, and all sides grow to hate.

It’s easy for us to look back on wars after they are done because more objective analysis can be done on who was right and who was wrong. We can all agree now that Germany was on the wrong side for World War 2, that the Nazis were bad, even the Germans can agree on this now, but during it? Each side felt their reasons and burned brightly with them.

So what’s my point in all this? Holding a stance on all issues is an extremely slippery slope that will never end well. I fundamentally believe the only issues that the NixOS Foundation publicly holds a stance for, should be the issues that the vast majority of the community agrees with, or the majority of the community is directly affected by.

To that end, we have so many wonderful members in this community who are part of the LGBTQ community. For them, the daily struggle of being themselves is very real, and pride month is an amazing way to remind them that their struggle does not go unnoticed.

I’m well aware public opinion is way more in favour of Ukraine and not Russia, so holding a stance in support of Ukraine would not cause many issues with the wider community. Israel and Palestine is a completely different story, where the division is extremely tight, and it would be very difficult to hold a stance on it without angering a lot of people and pulling in unrelated issues into the NixOS sphere.

Of course we could be selective and choose to ignore Israel v. Palestine for being controversial, but I argue that doing so would show everyone that the NixOS Foundation doesn’t really “stand” for anything, but simply props it’s support for whatever is popular. That doesn’t demonstrate a stance, it demonstrates the lack of a backbone in supporting issues. Not the direction I would want the NixOS Foundation to go.

I suppose as a tl;dr: I don’t think we should hold an official opinion on the issue with Ukraine because it brings into discussion the other issues around the world that we ignore. Israel v. Palestine is just one of the many different things going on around the world. How many can we realistically hold a stake in without pulling in a lot of outside conversation into the NixOS community?

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In addition to all that, it’s just occurred to me that there’s a specific problem with taking a stance on wars, especially the two wars mentioned in this thread,which is that there are many countries in which it’s illegal to take a stance on them that’s opposed to your government’s stance, and we have contributors from those countries. Now I think it’s worth standing up for freedom of speech, but we really can’t do that here.

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Personally I see another issue with this being a nations flag.

Because for me this would not be only a representation of the Ukrainian people struggling under the ongoing war.
It would also (and for me even primarily) be a representation of the Ukrainian state in all its aspects (including its army).
And even on the “right” side waging a war remains a gruesome thing that will most certainly entail actions which deserve no support.

Because of this I see a fundamental difference between the support of the LGBTQ community and this proposal and hope to never see the Nix logo dressed in a nations colors.

I would much rather see something akin to a fundraiser for a humanitarian organization or similar to show the solidarity of the Nix community to those affected by war and conflict.

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I want to clarify the core idea I’m hoping to convey with this proposal.

The decision to show our support for the Pride community with the rainbow logo was a meaningful step. In doing so, we established a precedent that NixOS is a community willing to take a visible stance on issues of inclusion and solidarity on one specific community.

This precedent naturally raises a crucial question of fairness and consistency: How do we ensure we support other communities equally in the future?

Having shown support for one community, we should now be open and prepared to support others as well. Focusing our support on a single community, however deserving, risks creating the impression that our solidarity is limited. To be truly inclusive, our support should be a principle we extend to all members of our community who face hardship, not a one-time gesture.

My goal is to ensure that the positive step we took is the beginning of a consistent policy, not an exception. This is how we can build on that decision and affirm that our commitment to supporting our community members is both genuine and universal.

Note: My goal here is to establish how we support each and every community, no matter its size. I am intentionally not using the word “minorities” because the principle of solidarity should apply to all.

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I am not down and very resilient :slightly_smiling_face:. I do think it is important we avoid turning this into personal attacks (it’s way too easy then!). Otherwise, the risk is that the thread gets locked, and nobody benefits from that.

Normally I ignore off-topic remarks, but since this one was directed at me, I will just say: I’d much rather we debate the substance of the proposal than the form or my personal history.

Let’s please keep the discussion focused on the actual topic at hand.

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I understand you mean well (I assume everyone does) but I am against this proposal. It would barely benefit anyone but definitely hurt many.

Supporters of Ukraine would feel a gesture of emotional support. That is the only benefit to anyone that I can see.

Supporters of Russia would feel misrepresented and could be pushed out of the community.

Russians, no matter their opinion on this conflict, could shy away from affiliating themselves with NixOS due to social or legal concerns, no matter how truthful these concerns might be.

It would heat up political debates that further divert focus from technical work. We have had enough of this problem already, in my opinion. It caused serious loss of contributors and lead to forks for non-technical reasons. People who once worked together peacefully no longer do. From a community management perspective, avoiding such events should have utmost importance.

My goal is to ensure that the positive step we took is the beginning of a consistent policy, not an exception.

As I understand, you want to introduce a policy or structured process for the community to choose which causes it wants to align itself with and signal support for. This proposal does not do that.

A policy has to be formalized. You should open a new proposal that focuses only on that process, without tying it to any particular cause.

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As a counter-proposal, don’t do any of this.

No causes except good software.

Unite around that.

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As far as I understand we already have this:

  1. Make a proposal directly to the marketing team as they are the ones in charge of the logo/homepage(maybe create a post here for additional feedback).
  2. Unhappy with the process or the result? Escalate to the SC.
  3. Unhappy with the answer of the SC? Vote in the next election or run for SC.

We don‘t need a process for each and every little detail. People can make decision. If one thinks they don’t align to the core values of this community use the above process to change things.

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I don’t think supporters of Russia would feel bad. But supporters of invaders and dictators may be hurted. And I would say, yes, please push them out of the community. Given that there is even a federal anti-LGBT propaganda law in Russia, those supporters should have been pushed out anyway.

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No causes except good software.

Please, everything has been said about this in the past years of community discussions. We have reiterated why human rights, and by this indirection queer rights, are actually important for a Free Software community and how different perspectives and protecting vulnerable or marginalised folks actually is good for software quality. So if you actually need a software-based reason for valuing human rights, here it is.

And unfortunately I do think that these things are political, at least as long as they are under attack and a struggle to those affected. But these being political is not a bad term to me, not a burden or something in need for excuses. How we interact with each other in a community is always the ground for being political.

I am tired of this (seeming) backlash and am thankful to everyone in the community who did their part for making the NixOS community a better, more progressive and friendly place for marginalised people. I explicitly want to thank e.g. everyone involved in getting out the pride logo change, @djacu et al.
Without shying away behind needing to have a perfect, all-encompassing policy for all things imaginable.
Without waging every other potentially imaginable color scheme discussion that might come up afterwards.

The bikeshed remains rainbow-colored :fist:
EOF

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Let me summarize (with some bias probably) and comment:

Process and policy:

  • it should not be an ad hoc process (Mapybara)
  • focusing our support on a single community, however deserving, risks creating the impression that our solidarity is limited (drupol)
  • it is fair to have a discussion (drupol) [in the context of lacking a formal process]
  • it is about the decision process for drupol (drupol)
  • not a responsibility of the Foundation (tomberek)
  • some personal comments were rightfully moderated. Thank you!
  • it’s ok to make the proposal directly and escalate to SC if needed (eblechschmidt) [YES!]
  • public political discussions a dumpster fire (michaelshmitty) [you don’t have to get involved]

Yes/no:

  • selectiveness implies that the Foundation doesn’t “stand” for anything
  • illegality for some to take a stance on wars (Mapybara) [slippery slope IMO]
  • national flags also represent armies (ginkogruen)
  • supporters of Russia would feel misrepresented (dermetfan) [doubtful, as the Russian govt is all about Ukraine and its Russian speakers, and its inhabitants largely self-describing as apolitical]
  • flag helps for community safety (vccs)

I propose that the SC define a process for the addition of logo statements, which I believe could be light weight, yet allowing the community to weigh in.

Furthermore, I’d like the Foundation to clarify the community’s freedom/constraints to make alterations like color changes in a trademark policy, which afaiu should be in development.

(edit, technicality: not meant as a reply to any specific message. computering is hard)

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