 | NixOS Foundation | 467 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 118 Servers |
| NixOS Foundation | 467 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 118 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Apr 2024 | ||
 Pol | * I usually refrain from engaging in community discussions, but the recent events and your message have compelled me to voice my thoughts. I have been a proponent of adopting Nix at the European Commission, advocating for its benefits and potential. However, the unfolding situation and, specifically, the content and medium of your recent post is a trigger. While I recognize and appreciate the good waves and intentions behind your message, using the Determinate Systems blog to address concerns that are fundamentally about the Nix community blurs the lines between corporate and community interests. By directing the conversation to the Determinate Systems' platforms — as seen in the mention of joining the DetSys Discord — it could be perceived as conflating the Nix community with Determinate Systems, which adds to the confusion. I hope we can find a way to address these community concerns more clearly and separately from corporate affiliations. A more distinct delineation might help reassure the community and myself about the independence and openness of Nix. I am open to dialogue and hope to see steps taken that might help change my perspective on the ongoing issues... good luck Eelco. | 07:41:49 |
| Pol | * I usually refrain from engaging in community discussions, but the recent events and your message have compelled me to voice my thoughts. I have been a proponent of adopting Nix at the European Commission, advocating for its benefits and potential. However, the unfolding situation and, specifically, the content and medium of your recent post is a trigger. While I recognize and appreciate the good waves and intentions behind your message, using the Determinate Systems blog to address a "community" (as mentioned in the post title) concerns that are fundamentally about the Nix community blurs the lines between corporate and community interests. By directing the conversation to the Determinate Systems' platforms — as seen in the mention in the last sentences, of joining the DetSys Discord — it could be perceived as conflating the Nix community with Determinate Systems, which adds confusion to the confusion. I hope we can find a way to address these community concerns more clearly and separately from corporate affiliations. A more distinct delineation might help reassure the community and myself about the independence and openness of Nix. I am open to dialogue and hope to see steps taken that might help change my perspective on the ongoing issues... good luck Eelco. | 07:46:47 |
 @shalokshalom:kde.org | In reply to @piegames:matrix.org I think this throws up a question, that might or might not be clear at this point. Are we a democracy? Since I agree, when we are, that the majority of the community seems to be for this enhanced policy, that bans MIC from sponsoring. I am potentially not well informed, - quite frankly, the situation seems to be not clear by design - but is there even a generally agreed upon structure, on how we decide things? If we have no BDFL, what do we have? Appreciate all your investments. 👍🏻 | 07:47:37 |
 @piegames:matrix.org | No, we are not a democracy | 07:50:31 |
| @piegames:matrix.org | Most of the time, we're an anarchy | 07:51:02 |
| @piegames:matrix.org | (And I don't mean that in a derogatory way of the word) | 07:51:30 |
| Pol | * I usually refrain from engaging in community discussions, but the recent events and your message have compelled me to voice my thoughts. I have been a proponent of adopting Nix at the European Commission, advocating for its benefits and potential. However, the unfolding situation and, specifically, the content and medium of your recent post is a trigger and I will seriously think twice before advocating Nix in the future. While I recognize and appreciate the good waves and intentions behind your message, using the Determinate Systems blog to address a "community" (as mentioned in the post title) concerns that are fundamentally about the Nix community blurs the lines between corporate and community interests. By directing the conversation to the Determinate Systems' platforms — as seen in the mention in the last sentences, of joining the DetSys Discord — it could be perceived as conflating the Nix community with Determinate Systems, which adds confusion to the confusion. The situation with the "Nix installers" where every single of my colleagues ask me why there are multiple installers existing... all of this is very tiring and cumbersome, and to some extent, dangerous for the project adoption. I sincerely hope we can find a way to address these community concerns more clearly and separately from corporate affiliations. A more distinct delineation might help reassure the community and myself about the independence and openness of Nix. I am open to dialogue and hope to see steps taken that might help change my perspective on the ongoing issues... good luck Eelco. | 07:54:24 |
 Arian | I really don't understand why people are Angry about this being posted on the DS blog. People make direct allegations specifically about Determinate systems. Then get offended that Determinate Systems answers? | 07:57:03 |
| Arian | Like. You're literally throwing allegations of them meddling and interfering with things and then get mad for them responding to the allegations . I'm so confused | 07:57:58 |
| Pol | I don't even know what to answer to you.... good luck to you too.... | 07:58:43 |
| Arian | Like. I am not surprised? Let's put it like that. | 07:59:25 |
| Arian | That you don't agree with the content. Find it lacking. Fine. But I don't understand why people are falling over the medium. Given DS was explicitly called out as problematic | 08:00:27 |
 [K]ate Temkin | Someone like Eelco has to wear two hats -- he has to both act as a foundation board member and as a founder of DetSys. He's repsonsible for keeping those two things separate. | 08:01:33 |
 vcunat | In reply to @piegames:matrix.orgYes, that's how it is, de facto. But a community like nixos.org can't work the same like a country, it's just different. | 08:01:52 |
| [K]ate Temkin | In reply to @ktemkin:katesiria.orgWhen he's questioned as a community leader, and makes a post about the state of the community, doing it from his DetSys account is a bad look. If he wanted to respond to the state of things as DetSys, he shouldn't have tried to make it about the Nix Community. | 08:02:32 |
| [K]ate Temkin | The upset comes from the tone-deafness in the lack of separation. | 08:02:45 |
| [K]ate Temkin | Further, "if you want to talk about allegations of misconduct against me, come and do it in this space I control" isn't a great look, either. | 08:04:13 |
 @withoutwithin:matrix.org | Before that blog post, I was willing to work together to help create a better future for this project. After that blog post I can't bother to fucking care. | 08:11:33 |
 nat-418 | In reply to @withoutwithin:matrix.orgYour documentation work has helped me over the years. Thank you. Sad to see another great contributor alienated. | 08:13:19 |
| @withoutwithin:matrix.org | Thank you, I try ^^ | 08:14:07 |
| @withoutwithin:matrix.org | honestly once eelco's post dropped, the only reason i didn't delete my back catalogue of Nix/NixOS posts is that I am currently on a work trip and don't have access to a stable internet connection | 08:19:58 |
| @shalokshalom:kde.org | In reply to @piegames:matrix.orgYesterday I got told, we are (sadly) not an Anarchy 😅 | 08:28:48 |
| @shalokshalom:kde.org | In reply to @ktemkin:katesiria.orgAgree. And 1:1 the same happened yesterday with the moderation team. | 08:29:35 |
 Maximilian Marx | In reply to @shalokshalom:kde.orgIt's really not “1:1” if people tell you “ we are not the moderation team, go talk to the moderation team if you want to discuss that topic” | 08:34:35 |
 @patka_123:matrix.org joined the room. | 08:37:15 | |
 @mangoiv.:matrix.org | In reply to @withoutwithin:matrix.orgPlease don’t 🥺 | 08:39:49 |
| Arian | I think people have very different views of the board. Personally I don't see them as our community leaders at all and I absolutely don't want them to be. It just doesn't fit NixOS. People have been trying to move it in the direction giving the board more agency and more voice over the years. But that was definitely not a push from eelco. He even pushed against that very explicitly from what I remember. He always saw it as a simple financial host for things. Not a voice or authoritative Shepard of the community as a whole. Just as a legal necessity so that we can pay bills. For a very long time it was just two board members rubber stamping financial report every year and handling invoices and that's it. There wasn't really anything public facing. Heck. Until 2 years ago nixcon didn't have any financial host, structure or plan whatsoever. We didn't even know how to legally charge for tickets. It wasn't affiliated with the foundation at all. We all forgot the drama of misappropriated funds and unclear legal struggles from the nix cons from before 2023? I think the problem is that we cant even agree on what the foundation is supposed to be. And it really changed really quickly over the last year or so. The people demanding more of the foundation in terms of support (coordinate funding from German government and European Union, be VAT host for nixcon) whilst it transforming from an extremely passive minimal foundation just for bookkeeping to a foundation from which people seem to demand a voice of authority is really the core of the whole struggle in my opinion. central questions to me is: does the community want a foundation with a voice of authority and are visible representatives of our Community? All these open letter de facto show that it has been become this without even the board members realizing. Otoh we seem to have board members (like Eelco) who clearly do not want to play that role. I see a conflict there that needs to be resolved. | 08:45:45 |
| Arian | But yeh. Defacto the board currently _is_ the face of the community. So it needs to resolve that internal conflict to give clarity and a way forward /2 cents | 08:46:40 |
| @patka_123:matrix.org | Board choses not to block controversial sponser -> community problems -> ... ? Whatever you like the job of the board to be you can't just ignore things | 08:50:13 |
| Arian | I think we can have a board that is purely a fiscal host. But then people need to accept that the board doesn't form opinions about NixCon. I think the new sponsorship policy is a way to solve that | 08:51:55 |