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The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

discourse.nixos.org

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Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#111

Post by aliasxneo »

ronef wrote: post #48

For anyone reading this and jumping to a broader conclusion: the Nixpkgs core team disbanding does not mean Nixpkgs or Nix is dying. It does mean that this particular structure was not sustainable, very important contributors burnt out and we need to do better, faster. We need to continue learning from this and continue building a stronger ecosystem that prioritizes the contributors who are the only reason any of thi…

Correct, but it's another domino in a broader trend that appears to have a common root. It was only a year ago that the moderation team mass resigned pointing the finger at the steering committee [1]. It's not been the same people for the last two years, but clearly there must be systemic issues in the people getting elected to this board for there to be so many persistent problems.

Also see roberth's resignation [2], and Gabriella439's retrospective [3], and then there's Jon Ringer's thing, the list goes on.

[1]: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/a-statement-from-members-of-th...

[2]: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/stepping-down-from-the-nix-tea...

[3]: https://haskellforall.com/2025/09/steering-committee-retrosp...

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#112

Post by matheusmoreira »

pests wrote: post #108
matheusmoreira wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, my company is using Nix for everything heavily internally. Everyone gets their dependencies via Nix unless you are like using PAM or something. Why doesn't your company fund development of nix and its associated ecosystem?

Why ask this? Maybe they are? Maybe they aren't, and that's ok too.

Why not ask this? People are burning out here. Meanwhile corporations be making billions. I don't like that.

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#113

Post by astrobe_ »

stingraycharles wrote: post #19

“Our experience is that the Steering Committee as an institution lacks a native instinct for the delegation envisioned by the constitution, while also not being sufficiently engaged and cohesive to handle individual decisions at those levels itself.” This is an almost poetic description of micromanagement. I really like Nix and have been running it as my main OS for several years in the past ~ 10 years. I don’t think…

The whole paragraph describes quite well what I feel at the company I currently work for. I think it is more accurate to say that it is interference (rather than micromanagement) and goalpost shifting because whoever is/are in charge don't have a clear idea of where they are going.

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#114

Post by aliasxneo »

stingraycharles wrote: post #104
aliasxneo wrote: post #18

I really don't think these issues are necessarily "systemic" in the sense that they've been ongoing for the last decade. I _was_ a long-time contributor until about two years ago when certain actors came into the community and started making a bunch of unnecessary drama. Since then I've seen some long-time friends in the community either slowly drop out or simply get ran out by a mob with pitch forks.

It is a systemic issue, though, when the system enables these certain actors to remain in position and cause the community to break apart like it’s doing.

That I agree with.

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#116

Post by microtonal »

farfatched wrote: post #95
soupbowl wrote: post #25

After being a heavy user of NixOS, I quit using it due to the communities instability, I don't trust it.

I've been a user for many years, and have 100+ PRs, but I'm not really a part of the community, so these posts are the only drama I see. The PRs keep rolling and things keep improving! If someone wants to be a part of the community, I can see why this might dissuade people though.

Same, I have contributed hundreds of PRs. You can contribute to nixpkgs while avoiding most politics (it can take time to get a PR merged though).

I have stopped visiting the discourse and other discussion venues years ago, they have permanent culture wars, drama, and people on power trips. It is sad seeing a project burn out so many people.

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#117

Post by Alien1Being »

alberth wrote: post #33

Can someone explain the ramifications of this to those of us not informed. I’m in the process of about to deploy Nixos to server workloads, but am now hesitant because I don’t understand these ramifications.

If you want to trust your servers to a product of this community, that is your call.

Just note that the community is unstable and prone to civil wars.

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#119

Post by darkwater »

So, looks like that being a good manager and serving it is no that easy for a good engineer in the end. (I'm not snarking at Nixpkgs core team, just at the many HN readers there that hate engineering managers in general just because they had some bad experience personally)

Re: The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

#120

Post by sshine »

haswell wrote: post #54
klodolph wrote: post #20

There was a sweet spot in like 2024 when it seemed like everything was possible with Nix, but now it seems like everything “experimental” is permanently so (like flakes), packages I care about are not as fresh as I want, I have no mental recall for Nix commands… Meanwhile, my company is using Nix for everything heavily internally. Everyone gets their dependencies via Nix unless you are like using PAM or something. Re…

Can you share more about what made you move away? I’ve been running a NixOS based homelab for awhile now with 5 physical hosts and about 30 NixOS containers/VMs in an Incus cluster and I can’t imagine moving away from my central Nix repo and ability to rebuild/upgrade the entire fleet in one command and feel confident that things will work. While I’m concerned about the disbanding, it would take quite a lot to make m…

I moved my homelab to Kubernetes. I just don’t see the use of single VPS’es. But I use the cluster as a training platform, so if I didn’t need Kubernetes in other parts of my life, I probably would have stuck with my NixOS VPS’es that all share config.

I use kubenix to manage the cluster, of course. ;-)

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