LWN: Comments on "A leadership crisis in the Nix community"

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

DanilaBerezin — Thu, 16 May 2024 23:43:56 +0000

This is about developers and the broader community not wanting to be associated with military defense contractors. A desire that is entirely reasonable and makes no broad statement about whether offensive or defensive military weaponry is justified.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

DanilaBerezin — Thu, 16 May 2024 00:09:50 +0000

I immediately noticed the same thing as well. Incredibly audacious for him to pull a move like that.

Thank you, Anduril!

anglerfish — Tue, 07 May 2024 17:18:01 +0000

Palmer Luckey is just as fascist as Thiel. Most of the FF affiliates are. It's not like they even care to hide it, they're all posting Lee Kuan Yew memes and 14 words analogues whenever they take a break from begging the DOD for taxpayer dollars.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

immibis — Mon, 06 May 2024 20:34:56 +0000

The political complaints are more than simple emotional hurt.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

motiejus — Sat, 04 May 2024 10:58:20 +0000

I've been using NixOS on all my personal systems for about 2 years now. I maintain a few nixpkgs.

It's fascinating that I hear about the drama only now, from lwn. I had no idea.

Technical work keeps going regardless of drama. I surely wish and hope it will stay that way.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

marcH — Fri, 03 May 2024 23:06:35 +0000

Correct, that's what I should have written.

Plus I really enjoyed the irony of correcting my exageration with something even more over the top (totalitarianism)

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

koh — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:20:53 +0000

> If there is no such disclosure rule in Nix then the correct answer is: "You're not allowed to ask this question"

Certainly not. Restricting the questions permissable to ask by virtue of *not* having a rule is the very core of totalitarianism.

The correct answer would be "/* no comment */".

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

khim — Thu, 02 May 2024 14:39:13 +0000

I wouldn't call this a small thing: this reinforces the notion that there are exist one dynamic which is presented to the public and entirely different one which is actually working.

That's… a recipe for disaster. I'm not against “disctator or (a few) who controls everything” project structure (heck, I'm using SQLite and look on how it's governed), but presenting one thing in writing and then doing something entirely different in reality is just dishonest.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

motk — Thu, 02 May 2024 09:35:25 +0000

Are you okay. You don't seem okay.

Nix* Governance: An Analysis

kleptog — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:13:31 +0000

> I was also interested in how they actually organize the conferences, given the clause in the Articles that says the board may not enter into agreements or contracts that make the Foundation the guarantor of a debt. Are the conference organizers putting themselves personally on the hook?

This is normal. Article 7 says the foundation can't act as guarantor for someone else's debt. They are allowed to enter into standard contracts themselves though. They have limited liability. The relevant article is actually Article 9 describing how the foundation is funded. Notably it does not mention debts, so any conference has to be financed from money they have on hand. Which is of course one of the reason sponsors are so useful: they can front money for the organisation before the conference starts and tickets are sold. Foundations ('stichtingen') tend to have a hard time getting loans from banks anyway precisely because they are so unaccountable.

> the governance issues will keep recurring unless and until the different projects figure out what their actual status is vis-a-vis the Foundation.

Agreed, this is a cluster-f*ck. The foundation seems setup entirely for the benefit of the founders, not the community. This was going to blow up eventually no matter what happened.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

marcH — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:29:56 +0000

> Does DetSys have or had relationships with Anduril?" Christensen replied: "Did you know this category of question is pretty much impossible to answer because NDAs are a thing?"

This is a stunningly embarassing way to answer "yes".

If some Nix rule requires _disclosing_ this sort of relationships, then that sort of _Non-Disclosure_ Agreement could not have and should not have been signed in the first place!

If there is no such disclosure rule in Nix then the correct answer is: "You're not allowed to ask this question", not: "NDAs are a thing".

Thank you, Anduril!

proski — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:29:47 +0000

Anduril does a great job giving back to the community. They publish a NixOS version for NVidia Jetson devices. Just days ago, they pushed a commit that fixes a kernel crash in random number generator. I was going to dig into that issue, it would take me weeks or months to figure it out. Anduril shared their fix for free.

I think people confuse Anduril and Palantir when they talk about the role of Peter Thiel. I don't think there is any significant connection between Anduril and Peter Thiel at this time. Sure, there is a connection through the Founders Fund. Some people left Palantir for Anduril. But it's not like Peter Thiel runs Anduril.

Finally, you don't have to build a killer drone with Anduril contributed code. Make a tree hugging drone, a satellite, an underwater vehicle, you name it. And you don't have to pay Anduril anything.

Nix* Governance: An Analysis

dmv — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 17:51:53 +0000

I spelled it out in painful detail only for the non-law types, whose eyes tend to fully over when looking at legal documents. :)

I agree, there's nothing that stands out especially. And what interests/interested me most are the exact ambiguities you pointed out about the relationship(s) between the Foundation and NixOS. Not least because I was reading the Discourse and Github comments on Nixpkgs when they had a bunch of maintainers officially resign. There was a strong feeling among them that they are related to NixOS but fully independent.

So to add to the confusion, the people involved in the different Nix-related projects have a bunch of different views about just what their relationships are.

> ...if the goal of the organisation was simply to be a legal entity to hold assets.

Another thing I noticed was in their Infra Team repo. In their inventories, it appears that *individual people* are the owners of the bits of infrastructure NixOS et al. use. Maybe that's where they came from and they've been officially granted to the Foundation, but that was very unclear.

> Which is kinda tricky if the foundation is organising a conference and the community disagrees with the way it is run.

Completely agree. I was also interested in how they actually organize the conferences, given the clause in the Articles that says the board may not enter into agreements or contracts that make the Foundation the guarantor of a debt. Are the conference organizers putting themselves personally on the hook? Is it prepaid? Interesting details only a lawyer could love. ;)

> The community literally has no leg to stand on.

That was the main thing I think they need to understand.

My advice: leaving aside all the substantive details about the recent controversies, the governance issues will keep recurring unless and until the different projects figure out what their actual status is vis-a-vis the Foundation. If, for. example, Nixpkgs think they are fully independent, they need to establish that. If the Foundation or NixOS wants to dispute that, that will both tell you a lot about how *they* view the projects and about concrete directions that need to be taken going forward for those who disagree.

But I'm just an interested outside observer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

xedrac — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:46:54 +0000

I never understood why an open source project would reject sponsorship, unless some serious strings were attached. I'm curious if Anduril's offer to sponsor Nix came with such strings attached, or do people simply find their work morally objectionable? If it's the latter, do those same people find it objectionable that we send weapons to Ukraine to defend against Russian invasion? I am very confused. I don't think it's fair to the Nix community to reject free resources based on a few people's strange political views.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

jubal — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 13:24:08 +0000

mate, a person who writes a screed full to the brim with right-wing talking points and dogwhistles was *never* situated in the centre.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

jafd — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 08:18:02 +0000

I see what you want to say, but it still somehow is making me feel wistful.

Nix* Governance: An Analysis

kleptog — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 07:38:26 +0000

This all seems pretty typical of the articles of association for a Dutch foundation (disclaimer: just browsed the Dutch version, looks similar to other such documents I've seen). Generally it's a template where article 2 is the only one that really changes. Sometimes there's some minor tweaks elsewhere.

You're right, the articles do not include any specific changes regarding the NixOS community. But then, that's not necessary if the goal of the organisation was simply to be a legal entity to hold assets. In particular, there's no mention of any mechanism that would allow members of a community to exert any influence over the foundation. They could have if they wanted to, but did not.

Dutch Foundations ('stichtingen') are the least accountable of all the organisation types. They have no shareholders, no members, the board is only accountable to itself and anything listed in the AoA. It's possible to make amendments that don't conflict with the AoA (huishoudelijk reglement) but that seems unlikely here given the boilerplate AoA. My take is basically that the NixOS community has no relationship with the foundation other than what the board feels like. Which is kinda tricky if the foundation is organising a conference and the community disagrees with the way it is run. The community literally has no leg to stand on.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

skissane — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 07:08:37 +0000

An open source project isn't necessarily a "one person one vote" democracy though. Many projects are set up so some people's opinions count for more than others. Generally, the opinions of people who've contributed more (whether historically or presently) tend to count more. Sometimes this is expressed through mechanisms such as giving a project founder a veto, or having a handpicked self-perpetuating leadership group. If people don't agree, they can always fork.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

jafd — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 06:47:50 +0000

Maybe you don’t realize it, but weapons can be both offensive and defensive, and without defensive weaponry, once a bad actor enters your place with the intent to kill you, you are toast.

In this case, the refusal “to harm others” is exposing many innocent lives to harm by people who do their thing and perceive your moral high ground as a weakness.

The peacewashing rhetoric you are using is so one-sided and completely blind to the world we are living in that it alone would make me side with Mr. Dolstra, despite any and all his alleged shortcomings as a community builder.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

LtWorf — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 05:58:51 +0000

This could easily be solved by taking a vote.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

rgb — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 05:16:13 +0000

Since much of the development of internet technology was funded by the DOD maybe we should all just unplug our TCP/IP stack right now. Cut your network cables, drown your smart phones and enjoy the silence.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

skissane — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 03:28:12 +0000

If a legal business wants to contribute to an open source project (in whatever capacity), I don't agree with trying to stop them just because some project members have a moral objection to what that business (allegedly) does.

The fact is, different people have different moral perspectives, and a business which is viewed as highly immoral to some, will not be viewed the same way by others. Going down this path just results in one section of opinion within an open source project trying to hijack the project to force their morality on everyone else, which is a big distraction from what the project is supposed to be about (something technical, not something moral).

I think this case is especially egregious: the project founder obviously doesn't share that moral perspective, and then when the project founder pushes back against this, the response is to try to get him removed from his position in the project. Someone starts something to solve a technical problem, and now a group of activists are trying to turn it into a vehicle to push their own moral views on everybody else.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

NYKevin — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 02:29:39 +0000

I tried to read your document. I got as far as the link to srid's "unwoke" page, and gave up. If you seriously think linking to a page like that is defensible in a collaborative FOSS environment, then I don't really see much point in continuing to read your argument beyond there.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

Kamilion — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 01:39:56 +0000

little more nuance when a "consensus" revolved around avoiding relationships with a military company that effectively makes weapons usable for mass murder out of FOSS legos.

"the project founder disagrees with it" -> "I want to make money pushing weapon sales and accept blood money to put tacit recruitment banners up at our conference"

That visceral description changes the situation quite significantly to how you described the 10,000 foot view, absent of the politicalizing.

Although I respect that, strictly from the license perspective, they are free to make use of those legos, we-the-people too, are free to collectively refuse to be involved with their usage to harm others.

<s> "But that's just my opinion, and I could be Dennis Miller." </s>

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

skissane — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 23:46:06 +0000

My impression, from observing this from afar, is the people claiming there is a "leadership crisis" are very political and are trying to push a project founder out because he disagrees with their politics. The primary trigger for this was a dispute over whether a conference should accept sponsorship from a company to which some community members have a moral objection. I don't think open source projects should be sidetracked by those kinds of disputes. It is also noteworthy how they claim a "consensus" had formed – even though it obviously didn't include the project founder, which makes it questionable whether it was really a "consensus" – and then when the project founder disagrees with it, this is viewed as objectionable behaviour ("relitigating"). I don't think the project founder should leave, I think the people responsible for this polticisation of an open source project should be the ones to leave.

Please

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:28:10 +0000

I would agree, and I'm basically done here. I've said all I have to say, and it has been made quite clear that everyone is a little too touchy, specifically because nobody wants to talk about it, but if we can't do work anymore unless we do, well that's really what the RFC is all about. It's really not that hard, and we used to have the answer for this.

Just look at Google's recent firings. In any ways Google was the poster boy for all this politicing in tech for a time, if its now too far even for them, well maybe that's a real sign, and I'm not just crazy here.

You guys can continue to throw mud if you'd like. Enjoy your week.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:25:26 +0000

I would say the same of yours, but if you scroll up a bit you can see a retraction. If there was an edit button on this site I would have edited it.

Please

corbet — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:19:31 +0000

We are getting far afield again; I think that the discussion of developers' political affiliation is not really on-topic here. Let's stop now, please.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:19:19 +0000

I don't condone slurs either, but I've heard plenty go completely unmoderated, which is really what this is all about. I am fairly well situated right in the middle, and probably have been for most of my life, barring a period where I was further left in my youth. From here, it all looks stupid, and it's not longer entertaining watching everyone throw shit when it is interupting real work.

I don't like extreme far right politics, but I'm not to fond of it's opposite either. Still I don't go looking for trouble, but when it is largely derailing a community I care about, that's another story. I really don't care what people's political persuasions are though, that's not what this is about. It's about a consistent bias, and moreso, a clear preference for political posturing over getting actual work done.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

atnot — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:18:02 +0000

> because there are basically no right wingers in tech

This is such an obviously false and disingenuous statement that it should disqualify you from ever being taken in good faith on this web site again

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:16:20 +0000

Indeed I would have corrected my previous statement and said there are almost no, because there is always someone, but what I am more speaking to is the endless witchhunt for all the far-right extremist that largely simply don't exist in this environment.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

josh — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:01:34 +0000

> there are not far right people in tech, because there are basically no right wingers in tech

If only this were true. Unfortunately, there are still many, though they're thankfully less and less welcome in many Open Source projects. They're *much much* more common in corporate tech.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

willy — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:01:09 +0000

I have worked with two people who made no secret of their vote for Donald Trump (2016 and 2020). I don't think either of them were looney enough to participate in January 6th, but they're both fond of using slurs for their political opponents.

And you can't credibly claim that ESR is not right wing.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

dskoll — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 21:24:13 +0000

How do you know the politics of everyone in tech? I suspect that most people in tech don't advertise their politics in tech forums. My guess would be that the politics of people in tech is broadly similar to the politics of the general population, at least based on my 30+ years of work in the tech industry.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 20:56:49 +0000

And actually just a bit further, there are not far right people in tech, because there are basically no right wingers in tech, so the one who is delusional is you. Nobody is immune from mistakes no matter how they identify. Identity doesn't even come into it and was never mentioned beyond the fact that it is weaponized on the other side, which it is, as you are demonstrating quite well, thank you.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 20:47:32 +0000

I'm sorry I don't see that anywhere in the document, so yeah, this is exactly the kind of mass delusion I am trying to address. Don't put words in my mouth, please and thank you. Also didn't leave any links so people could find it on their own if they are interested. Not exactly difficult to find nixos RFCs.

Also, if you agree that its fine to completely quash debate on a contentious issue that has been escalting for almost 5 years now, that I have sat by queitly not agitating and all, and only jumped in because I'm tired of seeing talented people silenced and leaving, then we are too far off ideologically to even argue.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

riking — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 18:36:50 +0000

"oh no scary trans person is a moderator on the link aggregator site the writers of the letter are posting it to"

Yeah okay I can ignore this person if they're making that kind of stretch.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

atnot — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 18:25:18 +0000

You somehow forgot to attach said presumably perfectly reasonable thing you wrote that got you banned to your post. After reading it and some of your associated commentary and context, I understand why, and I'm indeed very glad they banned you despite the moderation dysfunction.

here it is for anyone else: https://github.com/nrdxp/rfc-evidence/blob/master/rfc_evi...

As some might not be surprised to learn, it is largely a vague screed about woke mobs and various other far right dogwhistles that goes after a bunch of contributors with thinly veiled accusations and relitigates a bunch of other dearly earned bans.

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

nrdxp — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 17:56:09 +0000

It might be important to mention that a major contributing factor here is a heavily bias moderation culture that amplifies a singular position to create an illusion that it is much more reprasentative of the community as a whole than it actually is.

I am saying this as a long time Nix project contirbutor and author of a recent RFC to address the issues with this moderation bias, and instead of having an open discussion with me, so far I have been banned (the day after posting my RFC) and there is a long series of _ad hominem_ attacks launched freely in the github PR thread, to which I have no power to respond.

This alone should illustrate the depth of the issue.

Let's stop this one here

josh — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 17:15:08 +0000

The former certainly seems like a non sequitur. The latter seems like an entirely reasonable callout of someone who uses phrases like "woke mob", and I am directly stating that rather than implying it.

In any case, I would propose that going meta and talking *about* the comment thread only provides a certain amount of value, and that value has now been used up. So, let's stop, shall we?