I noticed on the NixOS Steering Committee page that Jan and Gabriella are stepping down at the end of their 2025 term, even though they were assigned two-year terms in the 2024 Steering Committee election. They mentioned they will provide an official announcement later, and I fully respect that.
That said, I do have some questions about how the election will be handled and how things will move forward. I want to be clear that I am not trying to stir up drama or peddle controversy. I am just looking for a bit of transparency. It would be helpful for the community to get some clarity, especially given the Steering Committee’s important role in guiding the project.
Another thing that stood out is that by 2026, only the two SC members from the Nix team will remain, assuming Tom or Winter do not run for re-election. This raises a few questions:
Why are only the non-Nix team members stepping down early?
Why does the Nix team overlap so much with the SC?
Are there plans to address any systemic issues behind early resignations?
With five out of seven seats now needing to be filled, how will the next election be handled?
Will there be any changes to the election process or timeline to account for this?
How is the project thinking about continuity, community representation, and transparency going forward?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some insight. A bit of clarity would go a long way in helping the community stay informed and involved.
You raise a lot of good questions. I think the answers to at least some of this are already documented in the Nix Governance Constitution, which state that elections should occur in staggered terms, with the idea that on alternating years there would be either 4 seats or 3 seats up for election to a 2-year term.
In order to accommodate that through the first election, 4 members were (randomly? EDIT: see phaer’s reply) chosen to serve 2 year terms, and 3 to serve 1-year terms. Of the 4 SC members who were elected for 2-year terms, it appears that 2 have chosen to step down and the reasons will hopefully be made clear in their official announcements.
From my understanding, that means 5 seats (of the 7 on the SC) are up for re-election this cycle. There doesn’t appear to be a policy in place for how the terms may or may not be adjusted to attempt to re-create the initially envisioned scheme of alternating 4- and 3-seat elections.
I’m not sure what answer you are looking for on this one, as the SC was not determined by a single person with an available rationale to explain. I assume because the electorate found this desirable. The rules for determining eligible voters and for the election process are also documented on Discourse and github. The discourse link for this year’s SC election announcement and policy is The Election Committee announces the second Steering Committee election.
Two SC members are already elected for one more year.
At least 3 candidates need to be elected for two year terms now.
At least 1 candidate needs to be elected for only a one year term now.
It’s not entirely clear whether candidate 5 will be elected for one or two years, both could be argued for.
Argument for one year: Without members stepping down, this election was supposed to fill 3 positions for two year terms, so let’s stick with that.
Argument for two years: In general, we’ll want to elect for two years, the one year terms were only introduced to allow staggering. Thus one year terms should be minimized.
Personally, I think it makes sense to go for two years for candidate 5.
Since the nomination phase for the new election has already started it would be important, I think, to see that announcement soon, at least well before the deadline for that phase at the end of September.
If I were asked what makes more sense in isolation, I’d probably agree with you; but constitutional rule was trading off quality of outcomes and complexity of the general rule.
So your first argument matches constitutional provision about replacement members elected after resignation serving the remainder of the term.