A leadership crisis in the Nix community • Hacker News Board

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#41

Post by HideousKojima » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:55 PM UTC

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

Stallman covered this in a (IMHO) very well thought out article: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

His article is specifically about pretend free/open source licenses that restrict what software can be used for. But the conclusion applies to similar behaviors around the entire free/open source ecosystem like conferences: it will just drive participants away and strengthen the position of proprietary solutions instead.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#42

Post by ParetoOptimal » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:55 PM UTC

jsyang00 wrote: post #12

The Anduril issue seems to have been the main catalyst for the drama. Seems like Anduril probably did more harm then good - who at Anduril couldn't have predicted that the Nix folks would start to have a major freakout the minute they attempted to sponsor?

It's worse because after the first time much of the community was trying to write it off as a simple mistake or miscommunication.

It became evident after the second time though that this was very on purpose and it was known there would be an issue.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#43

Post by duxup » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:55 PM UTC

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

I don't see anything in the article that indicates ideological policing. Did I miss that part?

It seems like these are questions of conflicts of interest and how the organization is being run. Those seem very relevant.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#44

Post by rgrmrts » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:56 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #34

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

It's very reasonable to not want your work used by arms dealers, and it is in fact your purview to "ideologically police" the uses your work is applied to. "If you don't want to help create war machines you can't contribute" is your solution, not mine. Historically the conventions of open source has been that use is completely without restriction, but there has always been conflict about that. The domain is new enoug…

But the software licensing explicitly allows your work being used by anyone (as long as they adhere to the license). If you don't want your work to be used by entities you disagree with you can not contribute to the project or advocate for use of a different license.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#45

Post by anon291 » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:56 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #34

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

It's very reasonable to not want your work used by arms dealers, and it is in fact your purview to "ideologically police" the uses your work is applied to. "If you don't want to help create war machines you can't contribute" is your solution, not mine. Historically the conventions of open source has been that use is completely without restriction, but there has always been conflict about that. The domain is new enoug…

I mean... if you license your work under nixpkgs license (MIT), you no longer really have the right to police who uses it. Of course, you are free to maintain your own nixpkgs and share your changes with whomever you want under whatever license you want.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#46

Post by neuronexmachina » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:56 PM UTC

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #35

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

> You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. The issue here is one of sponsorship. Contributors to Nix have a problem with contributing to Nix and then seeing sponsors like Anduril advertised. If Anduril donated but wasn't listed as a sponsor and didn't have a booth, I bet many wouldn't have an issue.

> Contributors to Nix have a problem with contributing to Nix and then seeing sponsors like Anduril advertised.

I might be misunderstanding, but I thought Anduril was repeatedly rejected as a NixCon sponsor?

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#47

Post by joepie91_ » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #24

I don't have any knowledge about nix, the community, about Eelco Dolstra, or about this particular drama. What I do know is that there is no such thing as "community leadership" and that extremely long diatribes about the flaws of the founder can be safely ignored. People who are unhappy with the community or the direction of nix should leave and start their own thing. They'll discover that building something is actu…

I imagine that the people who are unhappy about things are well aware of that, given that they generally are the people who have built NixOS to the point where it is now...

It sure is remarkable how many people seem to be assuming that the people complaining must just be some outsiders with no involvement in the project. It's maybe worth asking yourself where that assumption comes from.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#48

Post by giraffe_lady » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

retool wrote: post #32

Laaas wrote: post #11

I think it’s important to make clear that the letter is mostly bogus and almost libelous. Check into any one claim, and you’ll find it’s not the entire story. This however is true: > The Foundation board has unrepresentative composition relative to the community because, due to our count, all current members are cisgender, white-passing, men, one of whom has done military service, and one other (Eelco) likely relies…

[flagged]

How is it slanderous to point out the board composition is not representative of the community. Seriously walk me through this one.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#49

Post by busterarm » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

danhor wrote: post #29

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

Isn't that exactly what the free software movement is based upon? You can only use our software if you agree to share your source code modifications with the binary (death to proprietary software, very ideological) and you can only contribute if you agree if that.

but free software and open source aren't the same movements and don't have the same ideologies. There's some overlap, sure.

Given that Nix is LGPL 2.1 and Nixpkgs is MIT, the project leans more towards the open source camp than the free software camp.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#50

Post by gizmo » Mon, Apr 29, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #34

ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

It's very reasonable to not want your work used by arms dealers, and it is in fact your purview to "ideologically police" the uses your work is applied to. "If you don't want to help create war machines you can't contribute" is your solution, not mine. Historically the conventions of open source has been that use is completely without restriction, but there has always been conflict about that. The domain is new enoug…

All major open source projects are used by arms dealers. It's a big industry. Any business has customers they ideologically dislike. I get how that's annoying but it is what it is.