On 15 and 16 November 2025, the Zürich Friends of Nix hosted the seventh two-day ZHF event at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (OST) right next to Lake Zürich. These events are designed to encourage people to get to know each other, hack on everything Nix, and shape the future of open source together.
Event
The event took place in two large classrooms and the hallway connecting them. Thanks to the generous NixOS foundation sponsorship, we were able to provide food, drink, snacks, and coffee to our attendees as usual. We welcomed about 25 people from Switzerland and other European countries on both days. We seem to have picked the nicest weekend of the month.
We kicked off Saturday with an introduction to the event. @john-rodewald welcomed the guests and explained the schedule. @ners gave an overview of the recent elections. @Nebucatnetzer introduced the crowd to the ZHF process and how to contribute during the weekend.
We had a productive hacking session and ended Saturday with our traditional group photo and a fondue evening together. Hacking continued on Sunday and we even had enough cheese left for another fondue!
We were early enough to hack on a lot of packages this time around. Over the weekend, we opened 31 pull requests!
Acknowledgements
This event was made possible by Prof. Dr. Farhad Mehta (@fmehta), professor of informatics at the OST, by accommodating us in a large, modern computer room with a beautiful lake view.
Thanks to the event team (@ners, @das-g, and @john-rodewald) for making the weekend happen.
Thanks to @jopejoe1 and @leona-ya for their hard work as the release managers for NixOS 25.11.
And of course, thanks to all the participants for coming!
Looking ahead
The next ZHF hackathon in Zürich will take place in mid-May. For up-to-date information, check the Nix Zürich user group website.
You can also follow news shared on these channels:
- Zürich friends of Nix at meetup.com
- Nix Zürich Matrix room at #zurich:nixos.org
- Our sibling groups at Nix Bern and Nix Romandie
Find more Nix events in the NixOS Discourse Events category.
