| 27 Apr 2024 |
 nat-418 | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyz
I see Determinate Systems as a VC-funded, for-profit fork of Nix (in the broader sense). It seems to me that by having an alternate installer, alternate documentation, an alternate community, &c. that promotes an alternate experimental technology (flakes), DetSys seeks to establish itself as a commercial alternative Nix ecosystem. My understanding was that your recent blog post invited Nix community members to join the DetSys community. If I am wrong, then I am more than willing to be corrected. I sincerely appreciate your work and willingness to answer questions. Eelco: is this ^ understanding of Determinate Systems wrong in your view? | 10:15:33 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyz
I see Determinate Systems as a VC-funded, for-profit fork of Nix (in the broader sense). It seems to me that by having an alternate installer, alternate documentation, an alternate community, &c. that promotes an alternate experimental technology (flakes), DetSys seeks to establish itself as a commercial alternative Nix ecosystem. My understanding was that your recent blog post invited Nix community members to join the DetSys community. If I am wrong, then I am more than willing to be corrected. I sincerely appreciate your work and willingness to answer questions. * Eelco: is this ^ understanding of Determinate Systems relationship to Nix wrong in your view? | 10:15:46 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyz
I see Determinate Systems as a VC-funded, for-profit fork of Nix (in the broader sense). It seems to me that by having an alternate installer, alternate documentation, an alternate community, &c. that promotes an alternate experimental technology (flakes), DetSys seeks to establish itself as a commercial alternative Nix ecosystem. My understanding was that your recent blog post invited Nix community members to join the DetSys community. If I am wrong, then I am more than willing to be corrected. I sincerely appreciate your work and willingness to answer questions. this relationship | 10:19:05 |
 Arian | We never had a very monolithic community in the first place. I find the suggestion of "alternate" community really strange. | 10:22:42 |
| Arian | We've always had small islands of communities flocking around nix. Krebs, tvl, OceanSprint just to identify some | 10:23:39 |
 lord-valen | I don't see any reason to comment on it before Eelco affirms or denies that that Determinate Systems presents itself as an alternate community. | 10:24:41 |
| lord-valen | * I don't see any reason to comment on it before Eelco affirms or denies that Determinate Systems presents itself as an alternate community. | 10:24:56 |
 Eelco | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyz
Eelco: is this ^ understanding of Determinate Systems relationship to Nix wrong in your view? Yes, that's wrong. With the installer and zero-to-nix, we identified problems in the current ecosystem and sought to improve them. They're open source and can be upstreamed. Flakes pre-date DetSys and are widely used, and we have every right to go all in on them. | 10:29:56 |
| lord-valen | But since they haven't been upstreamed, doesn't that make them by-definition, alternatives? | 10:32:09 |
| lord-valen | Maybe that's a bit pedantic. | 10:32:19 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @niksnut:matrix.org
Yes, that's wrong. With the installer and zero-to-nix, we identified problems in the current ecosystem and sought to improve them. They're open source and can be upstreamed. Flakes pre-date DetSys and are widely used, and we have every right to go all in on them. So you improved them by creating alternatives? | 10:32:22 |
| lord-valen | But still. | 10:32:27 |
| nat-418 | In any case I appreciate the candid response. | 10:34:09 |
| Eelco | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyz
So you improved them by creating alternatives? Yes, that's often how open source works. nix.dev started out as a Domen/cachix project. The tvix folks have every right to create a better Nix. Etc. | 10:35:02 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @niksnut:matrix.org
Yes, that's often how open source works. nix.dev started out as a Domen/cachix project. The tvix folks have every right to create a better Nix. Etc. So DetSys seeks to influence the broader Nix community by creating alternative documentation, installer, &c. that DetSys hopes will be eventually upstreamed? Is that a fair statement? | 10:37:25 |
| Eelco | The point isn't to "influence" the community but to improve Nix's adoption by addressing some of the biggest pain points (like docs and the installation process). As a Nix-based company growing the Nix user base is extremely important to us. | 10:42:39 |
 erincandescent | In reply to @niksnut:matrix.org
The board doesn't decide every aspect of policy, in fact the only real policy we have so far is the sponsorship policy, and that only arose because we're helping with the financial side of NixCon. So there really isn't much power to delegate to the community, because we don't have those powers in the first place. And yet the board decided to set that policy in its entirety, rather than reserving for itself the powers it needs (e.g. right of veto, for legal protection/etc) and delegating the rest
Right now it feels like the board is simultaneously expressing a desire to not be making policy, but also it is not delegating that policy making capability to other organs of the project | 10:43:46 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @niksnut:matrix.org
What influence do you see us seeking? For instance, we're not NixOS release managers, we're not on the RFC SC, the mod team, etc. This discussion between me and Eelco was in response to his question. I appreciate him taking the time to reply. | 10:46:03 |
