"The ongoing debate on these issues has been divisive to the community and deleterious to our collective goals"
If you simply all agreed with me we wouldn't have all these important community members getting in fights and leaving.
"I am just one member of the five-member Nix team and hold no more formal authority than the others in determining the direction of the team"
Thought the inclusion of the word "formal" here was was pretty funny.
Both the letter and this response are pretty disappointing. The letter was too long and didn't make a great case even if it was ultimately probably right in many ways. And Eelco did not attempt to understand the writers, choosing to simply deny every single thing, which is not great leadership.
Even if he did nothing wrong at all, he makes no attempt to reach out to people who feel he has, to reconcile with them. To people who feel, justifiable or not, excluded he simply says: I've always done my best to create an inclusive environment. He doesn't seem to comprehend that one can try, but fail.
For someone with some interest in Nix but never having tried it, this has done enough to turn me off it for a few years. Who knows if it will still be around by then, considering the leadership and community.
> If you simply all agreed with me we wouldn't have all these important community members getting in fights and leaving.
Isn't this just stating the obvious? I think the same would be true no matter who it was or what was said. Indeed nobody would feel the need to discuss something if we were all in agreement already. I don't think people should necessarily fault someone merely for having an opinion that differs from yours, which IMO is exactly what this letter is about, and I don't even see what opinions are actually different to be honest.
> Thought the inclusion of the word "formal" here was was pretty funny.
Not sure why, you don't give any reasoning, but ok.
> choosing to simply deny every single thing
I didn't get that from their response at all. It sounds to me like the open letter should have listed specific action items they wanted to see, if they wanted to be taken seriously.
> Even if he did nothing wrong at all
Doesn't this by definition mean he doesn't need to do anything else? I'm confused.
> he makes no attempt to reach out to people
Which people where? Who was wronged and how? Where was that documented? I don't understand how you can expect someone to "reach out" to invisible people who won't make their concerns heard clearly (this letter is not that IMO).
> He doesn't seem to comprehend that one can try, but fail
Same as above... I don't see where specific wrongdoing is called out, or any suggestions for improvement.
> this has done enough to turn me off it
What is "this"? How has this directly affected you? To me there is no "this" or even a "him" without very specific concerns called out.
Up to this point, I was on the fence with regarding Eelco. I mean, I'm against the MIC sponsorship, yet I accept that sometimes a project doesn't take the direction I want, and I could understand that a leader has to compromise since part of the community indeed wants to go forward on this regards with the sponsorship.
Yet this post is really tone deaf. At this point, this is beyond the sponsorship, but recognizing that the community is split and addressing this issue. Important contributors have been banning each other on different communities, at least one important contributor has decided to step out of the maintainer role.
I'm a nobody on the nix community so is not like it even matters if I support Eelco or not, but this kind of response actually makes me worried about the future of the community.
> Could have been summarized as "I'm okay with my software being used to kill people and taking money for it".
I don't understand. Are we supposed to start policing who is allowed or not allowed to use open-source and free software projects, which goes against these licenses themselves and their requirements?
If you're against the NixOS Foundation taking money from Anduril, would you be opposed if the NixOS Foundation accepted the money and then would donate it back to Anduril? Because that would be functionally the same as not accepting the money and yet by your line of reasoning, it seems like you'd object even more to that.
As far as I understand, the formal objection that was posted on another comment/thread was to the NixOS foundation advertising Anduril (not taking money from it or accepting contributions from it), which to me makes a lot more sense even though I don't have a strong opinion about it.
flurie|1 year ago
- Anduril dropped as NixCon sponsor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37418351
- Open letter against MIC sponsorship: https://nixos-users-against-mic-sponsorship.github.io/
- Open letter in support of MIC sponsorship: https://nixos-users-for-western-mil-and-govs.github.io/
- Updated sponsorship policy: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-event-sponsor...
- Open letter asking Eelco Dolstra to step down from NixOS Foundation and Nix team: https://save-nix-together.org/
srid|1 year ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40166912
To address this, a RFC was opened yesterday:
https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/175
(Ironically, the authors got banned right after opening the PR)
depr|1 year ago
If you simply all agreed with me we wouldn't have all these important community members getting in fights and leaving.
"I am just one member of the five-member Nix team and hold no more formal authority than the others in determining the direction of the team"
Thought the inclusion of the word "formal" here was was pretty funny.
Both the letter and this response are pretty disappointing. The letter was too long and didn't make a great case even if it was ultimately probably right in many ways. And Eelco did not attempt to understand the writers, choosing to simply deny every single thing, which is not great leadership.
Even if he did nothing wrong at all, he makes no attempt to reach out to people who feel he has, to reconcile with them. To people who feel, justifiable or not, excluded he simply says: I've always done my best to create an inclusive environment. He doesn't seem to comprehend that one can try, but fail.
For someone with some interest in Nix but never having tried it, this has done enough to turn me off it for a few years. Who knows if it will still be around by then, considering the leadership and community.
ranger_danger|1 year ago
Isn't this just stating the obvious? I think the same would be true no matter who it was or what was said. Indeed nobody would feel the need to discuss something if we were all in agreement already. I don't think people should necessarily fault someone merely for having an opinion that differs from yours, which IMO is exactly what this letter is about, and I don't even see what opinions are actually different to be honest.
> Thought the inclusion of the word "formal" here was was pretty funny.
Not sure why, you don't give any reasoning, but ok.
> choosing to simply deny every single thing
I didn't get that from their response at all. It sounds to me like the open letter should have listed specific action items they wanted to see, if they wanted to be taken seriously.
> Even if he did nothing wrong at all
Doesn't this by definition mean he doesn't need to do anything else? I'm confused.
> he makes no attempt to reach out to people
Which people where? Who was wronged and how? Where was that documented? I don't understand how you can expect someone to "reach out" to invisible people who won't make their concerns heard clearly (this letter is not that IMO).
> He doesn't seem to comprehend that one can try, but fail
Same as above... I don't see where specific wrongdoing is called out, or any suggestions for improvement.
> this has done enough to turn me off it
What is "this"? How has this directly affected you? To me there is no "this" or even a "him" without very specific concerns called out.
licebmi__at__|1 year ago
Yet this post is really tone deaf. At this point, this is beyond the sponsorship, but recognizing that the community is split and addressing this issue. Important contributors have been banning each other on different communities, at least one important contributor has decided to step out of the maintainer role.
I'm a nobody on the nix community so is not like it even matters if I support Eelco or not, but this kind of response actually makes me worried about the future of the community.
KingMob|1 year ago
asmor|1 year ago
ChrisArchitect|1 year ago
The dire state of NixOS's moderation culture
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40166912
deputy|1 year ago
adhamsalama|1 year ago
[deleted]
someplaceguy|1 year ago
I don't understand. Are we supposed to start policing who is allowed or not allowed to use open-source and free software projects, which goes against these licenses themselves and their requirements?
If you're against the NixOS Foundation taking money from Anduril, would you be opposed if the NixOS Foundation accepted the money and then would donate it back to Anduril? Because that would be functionally the same as not accepting the money and yet by your line of reasoning, it seems like you'd object even more to that.
As far as I understand, the formal objection that was posted on another comment/thread was to the NixOS foundation advertising Anduril (not taking money from it or accepting contributions from it), which to me makes a lot more sense even though I don't have a strong opinion about it.