 | NixOS Foundation | 454 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 113 Servers |
| NixOS Foundation | 454 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 113 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Apr 2024 | ||
 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.xyzYes, 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.orgSo 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.xyzYes, 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.orgSo 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 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.orgThis discussion between me and Eelco was in response to his question. I appreciate him taking the time to reply. | 10:46:03 |
| Eelco | In reply to @erincandescent:fairydust.spaceI mean, my preference was to just let the con organizers decide what sponsors they find acceptable. | 10:46:43 |
 Arian | Wasn't the policy drafted by someone outside of the board? Tomberek? | 10:48:12 |
 eaon | In reply to @niksnut:matrix.org Tvix is not (yet) a for-profit project nor does it advocate for its use other than for purposes of experimentation. DetSys' positioning is obviously very, different, wouldn't you agree? To act as if your implicit power in the project (as a still very much present creator) has no bearing on how DetSys positioning is perceived is simply either really naïve or disingenuous. As a relative newcomer, DetSys' output has repeatedly confused me, because as opposed to just advocating for change internally you advocate to users directly. The steering of folks to your Discord is just the most recent example. | 10:53:37 |
| eaon | * Tvix is not (yet) a for-profit project nor does it advocate for its use other than for purposes of experimentation. DetSys' positioning is obviously very different, wouldn't you agree? To act as if your implicit power in the project (as a still very much present creator) has no bearing on how DetSys positioning is perceived is simply either really naïve or disingenuous. As a relative newcomer, DetSys' output has repeatedly confused me, because as opposed to just advocating for change internally you advocate to users directly. The steering of folks to your Discord is just the most recent example. | 10:54:27 |
| eaon | I'd really encourage everyone to read The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman. What is unfolding here is a classic example of what she described decades ago. None of this is a new phenomenon. | 10:58:45 |
 Claes | I am really confused by all allegations towards Determinate Systems, and that their actions are somehow illegitimate or conspicuous. There are hundreds of examples of companies seeing opportunity in an open source ecosystem, trying to sell services or a product around it while also sharing it under a free license. This is a good thing! It grows the use and mindshare, it stimulates innovation and so forth. | 11:01:38 |
 infinisil | Totally fine selling products around Nix, a lot of companies do that and I have no issues with it | 11:09:20 |
| eaon | Same. That is not at all what I'm getting at. | 11:10:18 |
| infinisil | DetSys seems to be trying to sell Nix itself, not just products on top of it.. | 11:10:47 |
| infinisil | Especially the third-party Flakes stability promise when you use _their_ Nix installer, directly going against the efforts of the Nix team trying to stabilise Flakes | 11:12:11 |
| infinisil | E.g. see https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/10603#discussion_r1581048278 | 11:13:02 |
| Claes | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.orgBut is not that the same as what for example Red Hat does? They sell a stability promise, they create their own patches towards the kernel, they upstream them but also maintain them in their own distribution What they sell is their distribution. Cannot DetSys be seen as selling a kind of distribution of NixOS? A relation similar to what Ubuntu has towards Debian? | 11:21:02 |
| infinisil | This is different because Flakes is an experimental feature, which explicitly allows making breaking changes to it (has to happen with a notice period though, due to so many people using it). This is in direct conflict with keeping it stable | 11:24:41 |
| infinisil | Imo, DetSys should acknowledge this fact and actively support the Nix team with stabilisation. They can take all the glory once they actually help stabilise something, but not before that | 11:29:29 |
 @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @arianvp:matrix.orgI would like to note that for half of that "past decade" we've already had serious moderation problems which I have repeatedly tried to address and which seems to have run aground on "no board mandate" every time. just because you didn't see issues for the "past decade" didn't mean they weren't there | 12:45:31 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | so let's please not pretend that this situation started in the last few months or year or whatever | 12:46:02 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | the lack of clarity on where the responsibilities and authority lie, has been a problem for a much longer time | 12:46:58 |