18 ms·

“Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

280 points by waon 5y ago

simonw 5y ago
It looks like the bigger question here is this: Is it the official policy of the home-assistant project that their software should not be packaged by NixOS? frenck is the fourth most active contributor to home-assistant - and it uses quite a few libraries he has authored: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors If frenck is saying NixOS can't package his libraries, he's actually enforcing that NixOS cannot package home-assistant. Is this direction agreed by the other maintainers of that project?
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > Is it the official policy of the home-assistant project that their software should not be packaged by NixOS? I have the impression that it is the policy of the home-assistant project that their software should not be run in any way not supported by them, and not redistributed by any distribution or other third party. They're somewhat actively hostile against people not following that.
  - simonw 5y ago
    In which case I think that's the story here - this isn't so much about frenck v.s. NixOS as it is about home-assistant v.s. repackaging. Though if that's the case it seems misleading of frenck that he hasn't clarified that this is a home-assistant policy in any of his comments around this.
  - ticviking 5y ago
    Why is it that projects grant rights to users and then are hostile to us using those rights?
    - rpdillon 5y ago
      This is what really confuses me! HA/frenk clearly are developing open source software, so they grant downstream users all the rights that go with that, including distribution rights. So far, so good, until folks actually leverage the rights frenk handed them and he shows up and says "Please respect my wishes and don't distribute my open source code." I can see how this is very confusing for a packaging team. It sounds like the "correct" approach here is for frenk (and HA?) to signal this lack of flexibility up front and stop distributing HA under an open source license. This will at least prevent other projects from investing in a packaging effort only to be asked to stop somewhere along the way.
      - ticviking 5y ago
        If they stop releasing it under an open source license then they lose access to all the free infrastructure that various companies and communities are providing.
        aequitas 5y ago
        You can’t have your cake and eat it too. There are also a lot of contributors who might have an opinion about closing the license: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors
- kop316 5y ago
  That is what is seems like: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-adding-library-dependencies-from-frenck/315185/30 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-addi... For context, balloob is the founder of Home Assistant
pfraze 5y ago
Really seems like you need to respect the author’s wishes here, but the tension between author and community can get complicated with FOSS. Open source is a contract with your audience that the code can be used freely. Authors gain their audience because of that contract, so there’s some obligation for them to respect that. That said, respect flows both ways, and I’ve had FOSS code get repackaged to steal credit which feels like just as much of a violation. (That’s not the issue here but it touches on the same challenge.) There’s no silver bullet. Sometimes things just don’t work out right and you need to fork or make an alternative. I’d personally lean towards making an alternative in this case, if it’s possible.
- sneak 5y ago
  The author's wishes are formally and legally specified in the copyright license to the code he wrote, which is MIT and allows redistribution. Everything else is simply noise. Once you make your software free, it isn't yours any longer and your opinions about it (or what others do with it) aren't relevant.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The author’s contractual wishes are specified there. It’s fine for an author to have additional, non-contractual wishes. (Legally, it’s equally fine for someone to follow or not follow those additional wishes.)
    - lucideer 5y ago
      Unless your non-contractual wishes are directly contradictory to your contractually stated wishes, and you actively harass the maintainers of a project that very politely choose to decline your non-contractual wishes.
    - npteljes 5y ago
      To be fair, you should not have used "legally" in the sentence above. So there's the license, there's the author's wish, and there's the other party's wish, and both wishes are equally valid, they don't have to agree at all, what matters is the license.
INTPenis 5y ago
I've seen a similar situation when Ansible were resolving issues with Jinja2 but Ansible contributors simply helped the Jinja contributors to resolve the issue. It wasn't like all the burden was put on the jinja project. Now those are two very active projects but what I mean is that no one is forcing the author of the repackaged code to support anyone he does not have time to support. If they want support they can ask the nixos project maintainers for it.
- throwaaskjdfh 5y ago
  It still takes effort to sort support requests into those he wants to handle and those he doesn't. If he thinks that the manner in which is work is being used is going to bury him with requests, whether he takes them or not, it makes sense to try to avoid the situation altogether. I don't think there's a way to actually do that with an open source project though.
  - rubatuga 5y ago
    I think he’s so focused on time management (from his about page), that he is catastrophizing about the future. He also clearly wants the fame from having a library in Home Automation, but doesn’t want to provide any support.
    - jsmith45 5y ago
      He is a paid Home Assistant core developer. (Hired by the company the project's founder created to generate sustainable income for developing the project by offering optional value-add services). This library was written specifically to be used in Home Assistant, as per project policy the code that interfaces with devices needs to live in a separate python package. So there is no real fame to be had from this particular package. He surely sees this repackaging as a source of potential headaches. If the nix folks could convince him that the package would never contain modified code (no no untested/unsupportable modifications), and further that the home-assistant package in nix would always use exactly the version specified upstream (so no version mismatch concerns), he would likely be less opposed. Unfortunately the latter is very much not true right now.
waiseristy 5y ago
"Slightly assholic at first sight" kind of tells you all you need to know about how this developer will go about solving community problems.
- geoah 5y ago
  ^ this is actually in the author's github profile. You can't make this shit up. https://github.com/frenck https://github.com/frenck > Slightly assholic at first sight Actually a nice guy that just likes to get stuff done. @home-assistant Herder @hassio-addons Creator
elmerfud 5y ago
Seems like an author that doesn't understand the spirit of FOSS. The nixos team was clearly allowed to use it and include it when asking for some technical merits as to why, and even offering many alternative options to appease the author the author seemed to just childishly stamp their feet and say, "because I said so". Eventually the author took the position of "taking my ball and going home". Why is a person like this even engaged in FOSS if they don't have a desire to share or even engage in a reasoned discussion?
- sigzero 5y ago
  Reading through all the comments that was my take as well.
- nailer 5y ago
  He doesn’t understand the letter of OSS either. Limiting who can distribute a project means it no longer meets the Open Source Definition and is therefore not OSS.
  - mirthflat83 5y ago
    ?
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    No, he acknowledges explicitly early in the thread that the license allows the code to be redistributed with or without his approval.
    - viccuad 5y ago
      And later he states "Unfortunately, you are wrong there. I will explicitly and publicly list parties that are allowed distribution in the license and allow for requesting distribution requests." The "fine article" always contains the correct bits.
      - threwawasy1228 5y ago
Arnavion 5y ago
The package author has gone on to open issues for their other Python packages too - https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/created_by/frenck https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/created_by/frenck - currently five open (and locked) issues.
- oauea 5y ago
  "Upset open source developer spams other open source repository"?
- bellBivDinesh 5y ago
  Borders on harassment
arthurcolle 5y ago
Can someone elucidate why he is so against "his" code being used in this project?
- verdverm 5y ago
  The package author lays out the reasons in his comments
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  He says early in the thread: > If users experiencing issues with the ambee library in this package, they will knock on my door. And I'm not willing to support that or accept that burden. Especially as I don't see a good repacking reason in this case.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    I mean, yes, but then when the NixOS folks offer something like: requiring users to explicitly set config.ambee.acceptThatThisPackageIsNotSupportedByUpstreamDevelopersAndIWillGoToNixpkgsToReportAnyIssues = true to be able to install the package, or they would get an error that would make it even clearer. Would that be enough for you? the author replies just: I feel like I'm starting to be on repeat now. Please don't add any of my stuff to this project.
    - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
      Perhaps forking 'fully', and rebranding the fork, could be another option. That might help redirect the support burden downstream.
    - nmstoker 5y ago
      The author may well have plausible reasons but it was obvious from the overly curt tone he wasn't going to treat the discussion constructively
steveklabnik 5y ago
I am reminded of jwz, debian, and xscreensaver (Not linking to jwz's blog from HN because... he doesn't want it to be.)
- pfraze 5y ago
  That cracks me up every time
- Hublium 5y ago
  What's the story here?
  - pfraze 5y ago
    If you link to jwz from HN, his server notices the referer header and serves an image that mocks the HN community
    - jakebasile 5y ago
      Looks like if you long press on it in iOS it gets through.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    IIRC he had xscreensaver start spitting out error messages when it was old because Debian generally keeps package versions fixed per release, meaning if someone had a 2 year old but still updated version of Debian it would ship with a 2 year old version of xscreensaver. Jwz was tired of getting error reports for bugs fixed years ago because someone installed a the default "current" version on their Debian based OS.
- oauea 5y ago
  For anyone else interested: http://www.dereferer.org/?https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejwz%2Eorg%2Fblog%2F2016%2F04%2Fi%2Dwould%2Dlike%2Ddebian%2Dto%2Dstop%2Dshipping%2Dxscreensaver%2F http://www.dereferer.org/?https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejwz%2Eorg%2Fbl... (dereferer because jwz is hostile in case your browser sends referer header)
- 5y ago
63 5y ago
Is there greater context here that helps explain what's going on? Reading the comments in the thread didn't clarify much for me as someone unfamiliar with NixOS, their apparently unique Python packaging scheme, and Home Assistant.
- res0nat0r 5y ago
  He just doesn't want anything of his included in nixpkgs because he doesn't want to deal with anyone opening Github issues against his repos if there happen to be build / installation issues that are coming from some kind of failure in the nixpkgs install / build process.
  - Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
    Also they offered various options to appease the author including code forking and the author rejected them all. Basically the team exhausted all of their options to make this author happy but the author seem not to understand the reality of FOSS. This author shouldn't be in the FOSS if the author is going to roadblock every options despite his licensing explicitly allows including the codes.
    - res0nat0r 5y ago
      Agreed. If he wants to be stubborn like this he just should change his licensing so it can't be included anywhere else upstream and that would put an end to it.
  - lucideer 5y ago
    That's speculative on his part (noone has opened any issues with him, neither coming from nixos nor from any other repackaging). The nixos guys also offered various proposals to him to completely avoid any support burden on his part, all of which he roundly rejected. Seems he's just being unreasonable for the sake of it tbh; I can't see any logical reasoning behind it all.
    - res0nat0r 5y ago
ffggvv 5y ago
that frenck guy actually just comes off as an a-hole. especially with their passive aggressive responses. why are so many software people like this? maybe he should change his license
blowski 5y ago
I don’t really understand the details here. Seems like they disagree about the ease of avoiding it being repacked. Perhaps a good compromise would be for them to collaborate on a solution they’re both happy with. As it is, this conversation looks like: “can you not pls” “too difficult” “no it isn’t” “yes it is” ad infinitum.
- throwaway84576 5y ago
  He's not interested in that. The NixOS folks asked: "I'm also a little anxious that this thread has the potential to get heated quite quickly, so if you have the time and are willing to it might be worth setting up a quick Jitsi Meet to talk about this. Failing that, maybe we should pull this off into a separate issue thread so we can discuss there instead." but he replied curtly with "My wishes are above, please do not repack my code into this project. Please respect that request. It is a fairly simple request, nothing heated about it. I have no intention of spending time in this project. Thanks."
- lucideer 5y ago
  > a good compromise would be for them to collaborate If you read through the thread, the author makes it extremely clear that he has zero interest in collaborating or coming to any kind of mutually agreeable solution.
kissgyorgy 5y ago
If you don't understand the authors frustration, read Daniel Stenberg blog about what kind of requests he gets about curl. It's insane and ridiculous, not everybody is capable of/wanting to deal with all kinds of shit and hostile users like Daniel.
- f311a 5y ago
  That's not related to this particular issue though.
  - kissgyorgy 5y ago
    You don't understand the issue then. The author don't want to deal with all kinds of requests unrelated to his own package. NixOS is an operating system, totally understandable he doesn't want to deal with OS issues.
    - f311a 5y ago
      Why would users report to his project when installing Home Assistant? That's not usually how it works and Home Assistant has a lot of other dependencies. His library was written specifically for Home Assistant and it's an internal dependency that no one usually sees. It's a 300 lines wrapper for Ambee API.
    - whateveracct 5y ago
      But people on NixOS may use his software...if not in nixpkgs then someone will just maintain their own overlay that many people use. It's impossible to stop - if there's demand by NixOS users for this software, they're gonna package it up and patch it in order to keep Nix Nix.. Hell, I could go make that overlay right now and link it in a nixpkgs issue for discoverability. What's this frenk person gonna do? Cut me an issue saying "pls delete this code from the internet"? Hah!
- mcguire 5y ago
  So...don't publish software? That's part of the game, no?
alexandrerond 5y ago
Funny that the author complains they have no time to support users, but they have time to waste that of other open source maintainers and users as if the wish to package their Open Source software deserved no respect.
- evanelias 5y ago
  > the author complains they have no time to support users In the github issue, as far as I can see, he doesn't "complain" at any point about having "no time to support users". What he does say is "I'm not willing to support that or accept that burden" [of supporting NixOS users], and "I have no intention of spending time in this project" [meaning NixOS]. It appears that he just isn't interested in NixOS or supporting NixOS users. That's absolutely his prerogative, and does not mean he is "complaining" about not having "enough time" for it. And regardless, how he chooses to spend his volunteer/unpaid time really isn't anyone else's business. There are some other valid criticisms here but I don't feel this particular point is a fair take.
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
I don't see anything wrong here. I think licensing terms should heavily favor authors, because if you're writing FOSS, you're already giving away intellectual property for free. You don't need to suffer any degree of support. Software in most cases is literally provided "as-is." There are no fruits to bare from providing something for free. Clout doesn't pay the bills. I think people get really weird as soon as you cross the threshold of providing something for free versus something for even a nominal amount. As soon as you have to pay anything, it turns people off. Which is a good thing.
- ggggtez 5y ago
  Contrary to this, I think we do see FOSS authors post every now and then that when their packages explode in popularity, they can't provide meaningful support, and end up closing down their FOSS project instead. I think it's entitled to want to use someone's free work against their wishes. Why is he the bad guy? He acknowledges the licence allows it, but wants to change the licence in response to people wasting his time. That's surely fair game too.
bjt2n3904 5y ago
This is an extremely odd request for something licensed as MIT. Especially since the code layer is so thin. The project has existed for a week, and consists of 360 lines of python, most of which are get/set on what I think is JSON. Edit: Geez. Half the commits are bumping dependencies. The project is incredibly clean and beautifully structured, but gosh...
- jandrese 5y ago
  Totally worth the effort to re-implement/find an alternative when the code in question is so minimal. No need to deal with this guy.
relevant_thing 5y ago
A very similar thing happened when the folks at flathub tried to package MultiMC. Unfortunately the author threatened to sue for trademark infringement and they backed down. https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/1978#issuecomment-743741387 https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/1978#issuecomment-74...
- Pentamerous 5y ago
  > I'd liken this to rape, actually. I'm really astonished with this comparison.
- Macha 5y ago
  Huh, I'd been pretty happily using MultiMC for some time and even thought they were in the right of the Forge dispute. Might have to look for alternatives next time I get back into Minecraft.
gotts 5y ago
His About page https://frenck.dev/about/ https://frenck.dev/about/ looks a bit weird after I read that GitHub thread > I like to give back my knowledge and time to the open source community.
- bogwog 5y ago
  I think this is a cautionary tale about using social media while in a bad mood. Considering how unreasonable he was in that thread, I'm assuming he was just in a bad mood or something like that. Except now he's on the front page of HN with tons of comments criticizing him and painting him as a bad person. 99.999% of people will probably forget this by tomorrow, but it still would suck to be on the receiving end of this kind of attention I think.
  - bellBivDinesh 5y ago
    He also opened issues about four of his packages being used in the project. Doesn’t seem like a spur of the moment thing.
  - richardfey 5y ago
    I guess it's not his first rodeo, he simply doesn't want to support whatever version is packaged by NixOS. However the MIT license dictates what can or cannot be done. No need for further drama.
- dwild 5y ago
  How so? Seems like he does give back his knowledge and time to the open source community. Much more than me I can tell you, and probably more than many of people in thread. What he don't like is people expecting support from him in ways that differ his initial distribution methods, which makes sense when time is a limited ressource and he clearly has expectations on how he want to spend it.
  - apple4ever 5y ago
    Except literally the Nix folks were making suggestions to ensure there would be no expectations go support.
deleted 5y ago
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deif 5y ago
I find it quite amusing that the package author refuses to act reasonably and states he wishes to spend no time on the project, whilst being pulled further into the project. If he simply willingly engaged with the project owners to resolve the situation he could avoided: 1. Spending so much time trying to get the project to stop what they were doing. 2. Peacefully come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. 3. Front page HN where I will most certainly be avoiding using any project the author is part of.
- type0 5y ago
  This attitude has done a lot of reputational damage to Home Assistant which is unfortunate.
  - eptcyka 5y ago
    I am considering moving over to alternative already. I don't want to be dependent on a project that actively dissuades people packaging it up.
shadowgovt 5y ago
This is an interesting example of how social concerns interact with technical concerns in the real world. We sometimes like to think that software architecture decisions are made by rational actors using logic to choose the technically best solutions, but here's an interesting example where Home Assistant may need to change its dependencies because the author of the library it relies on is too difficult to work with.
sleepydog 5y ago
I fail to see why the author could not add instructions to their project's issue tracker, something to the effect of "If you want to report a bug, please reproduce the issue with the latest pypi package. Reports for any other deployment methods will be closed without further discussion."
- aequitas 5y ago
  A lot of people don't RTFM.
system2 5y ago
God, tiny piece of code. Rewriting would take less time than arguing.
- waiseristy 5y ago
  Or just fork it. Obtuse developers getting their projects forked out of their control is a tale as old as FOSS
sergiomattei 5y ago
Yeah, while I get the maintainer's point, the conversation rapidly devolved into giving the Nix maintainers a hard time. I mean, c'mon, Nix is a tiny niche. It's not like the support burden will be colossal.
- pbronez 5y ago
  Plus Nix is a crazy deep rabbit hole. If you're at the point where you're trying to make something work with Nix, you'll know when the problem is upstream and when it isn't.
cmm 5y ago
regardless of the specifics here, stuff like this is liable to pop up a lot in the coming several years while NixOS is gaining more popularity but casual (as in "not willing to put in the effort of supporting off-beat distributions") OSS authors can still reasonably ignore it. the amount of patching that Nixpkgs packagers have to do sometimes is pretty extreme
- whateveracct 5y ago
  Nothing wrong with patching Part of the beauty of Nix is it's easy to maintain patches - this can be nice cost-wise compared to upstreaming in many cases. Not saying upstreaming isn't a generally good thing, but it's nice to have this other option.
  - jonringer117 5y ago
    Generally if the patch is not-specific to nixpkgs, we ask the contributor to upstream the patch, and then we have a `fetchpatch` utility which makes it easy to pull from an upstream source.
javert 5y ago
The dev deserved to be treated kindly, by default. But by being unkind himself, he surrendered that privilege. So now he won't and shouldn't get what he asked for. I don't understand how an adult human could fail to understand this. Asking a favor while simultaneously being a jerk is not likely to work.
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braza 5y ago
I agree with the point that this is a FOSS, but as author I would be terrified if some downstream users started some mobbing me [1] due to upstream changes as we saw in the FastAPI Pydantic meltdown [2]. [1] - https://twitter.com/ChristianHeimes/status/1382815260558655497 https://twitter.com/ChristianHeimes/status/13828152605586554... [2] - https://github.com/samuelcolvin/pydantic/issues/2678#issuecomment-823539148 https://github.com/samuelcolvin/pydantic/issues/2678#issueco...
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yongjik 5y ago
Am I missing something, or is the project in question literally just one week old? https://pypi.org/project/ambee/#history https://pypi.org/project/ambee/#history https://github.com/frenck/python-ambee/commits/main https://github.com/frenck/python-ambee/commits/main
- ticviking 5y ago
  If the response to someone finding and using your work is the kind of over the top demand to "don't use the thing I just released under a permissive license" with multiple replies that amount to, "Don't use the thing in a way I don't like kthanxbai" how can you depend on it?
  - aequitas 5y ago
    The project is written specifically for Home assistant by a core developer, it's not a small time developer who's project got accidentally included in a major project.
    - ticviking 5y ago
      I'm not sure how that's relevant. When we release software to others under an open license we are explicitly allowing them to do exactly what nix is doing. I'm not sure what other reason we have a component independently deployable other than to make it usable by people in other projects. AFAICT it's kind of the opposite problem to systemd owning unrelated stuff because it's easier on those developers.
  - dwild 5y ago
    > If the response to someone finding and using your work That wasn't the issue and it's crazy how much people interpreted it as such. His issue is with how it was packaged with it. He want it to be exclusively distributed using PIP. If you don't want to depends on PIP, well sure don't use it.
    - trenchgun 5y ago
koreanguy 5y ago
what a complete moron, acting like a little spoiled punk , they offered to fork it completely to avoid the issue and he rejected still.
whateveracct 5y ago
What's worse is this frenk guy seems to be the reason his packages are being added to nixpkgs He added the dependency himself https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 Nobody gives a shit about frenk or his code directly here - they want to use Home Assistant. But now that frenk added his code as a dependency, he has the right to transitively make Home Assistant un-packagable on NixOS? EDIT: On top of that, the way NixOS works is philosophically in-line with Home Assistant > Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first Pinning every Python dependency instead of fetching HEAD is how you get local control and security!
- noahtallen 5y ago
  I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure that Frenk’s license has to be compatible with home assistance’s license for it to be included. If home assistance has a normal OSS license, I doubt it can use a dependency with a very restrictive license. (Such as one with a list of what can use it!) In other words, I don’t think it’s possible form him to transitively make home assistant’s license more restrictive.
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    Home Assistant itself uses the Apache 2.0 license, which is pretty permissive. It doesn't impose much requirements on derivative works, so it can use a dependency with a restrictive license without problem. However, this would become problematic if Home Assistant also uses a GPL dependency (which it probably does). That dependency would impose a requirement that all other libraries used by Home Assistant use a GPL-compatible license (which his license likely wouldn't be).
- lesto 5y ago
  > Pinning every Python dependency instead of fetching HEAD is how you get local control and security! yes it is? they make sure the user get a specific version that is (hopefully) vetted and know as working properly; this is much safer than pulling HEAD for a 3th party repo. As long as the libs are updated regularly and when security issue are found, I see no problem with this approach > he has the right to transitively make Home Assistant un-packagable on NixOS? Pretty sure a custom license is not compatible with the Apache 2 license of "Home Assistant"; also as the code is in use by a third party, the author should not be able to retroactively change license, only next releases. Probably will be forked or removed depending on the specific of the case and of the code.
FemmeAndroid 5y ago
Here's the thread NixOS posted to the Home Assistant forums, "Consider to avoid adding library dependencies from frenck." https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-adding-library-dependencies-from-frenck/315185 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-addi...
- lucideer 5y ago
  Wow, that thread is wild. If the views in that discussion are generally representative of the perspective of a majority of homeassistant maintainers & stewards, I'd be extremely wary of relying on the software long term. > Just do as he asks This is the absolute antithesis of the intent of open source. What an awful community response.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    > What an awful community response. You're expecting an entirely unrelated community of users to be invested in the goals and interests of NixOS. They're not, and perhaps they see Frenk's point in a way that people that aren't part of their community do not.
    - danhor 5y ago
      What Frenk is effectively saying is that he doesn't want his packages redistributed by distros. Since this is a dependency of home assistant, this means home assistant (as the whole package) can't be distributed if his wishes are respected. Additionally Frenk didn't react to any proposal to still distribute home assistant and it's dependencies while respecting his wishes. This seems like a pretty clear-cut case of involving the upstream community, to make sure they're aware and ok with their dependencies trying to block distribution or to change something if that's not the case. The whole saga left me rethinking my home assistant usage, since it seems like this could become a larger issue with other distribution mechanism not sanctioned by upstream.
    - totony 5y ago
      Arguably the home assistant community is fragmented. What if Debian policy or whatever distro they use is targeted next? IMO there was no discussion in that thread just "remove from no" "we can't do that" repeat
domenkozar 5y ago
It's interesting since from https://github.com/sponsors/frenck#sponsors https://github.com/sponsors/frenck#sponsors he pitches: > Are you enjoying my work? And want to support me in my effort helping the world to become a better place by dedicating my time & knowledge to create & innovate open source software solutions. Allowing everybody on this earth the privilege to enjoy those things for free?
- acid__ 5y ago
  Seems like he understands the “free” in FOSS to mean free as in beer, not as in freedom.
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  Yeah the fact that the repo's readme starts with links to money begging links just makes this weirder. Really looks to me that Mr. Nijhof doesnt quiet get what open source is about.
alexaholic 5y ago
This looks like an attempt to ridicule the guy. He’s made a simple request and he doesn’t have to explain himself. The other parties can comply or not, they may ask questions or not, but surely publishing this non-story to HN and have people interpret his actions, fantasize about his understanding of OSS, their social skills etc, and eventually deride him is a bit hostile and immature. Folks, he’s a human being. He’s made his desire known and you don’t have to like it, understand it, or agree with it. Just leave him be.
- pas 5y ago
  Like his request, the submitter can simply submit this to HN for us to simply look at it and, like the author, we can simply share our thoughts, and everyone is free to think and feel whatever they do. We are human too, social animals and all that. Are HN readers/commenters known for harassment? How alone are folks supposed to leave him?
  - alexaholic 5y ago
    You can be free and not deride anyone, both at the same time
  - npteljes 5y ago
    I have no answer for your last question, and I don't think there's a well defined line. Maybe the line is that we shouldn't share comment drama. The reality is that these kinds of discussions can lead to bullying, and that's what's not so simple about just discussing issues like this.
- npteljes 5y ago
  I agree that situations like this are scary, because they can lead to mob mentality. I wonder why you're downvoted for this.
jonringer117 5y ago
Related context: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126319 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126319 In response to "not having the latest": Generally we (nixpkgs) lag behind a bit, as managing ~60-100k packages takes some time. But as long as the process to build a package hasn't changed, we will have a bot which automatically attempts to update packages based on metadata from pypi, github, and repology.
supurbly 5y ago
Looks like frenck plans to file issues against Fedora too: > I just did notice Fedora redistributing some of my packages because of your question, so will file a similar request with them. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860051291 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86...
- type0 5y ago
  This will be interesting to see how they will react. Btw speaking of licenses, since frenck said he will be changing it by adding exceptions and making it non-free. Douglas Crockford said in one of the talks that one certain three letter company contacted him and wanted to use JSON format but weren't sure they could comply with "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." And he gave them that exception by stating: "I thereby allow ** to use JSON for Evil". My advise to Frenck is to adopt some similar proprietary license if he wants his work not be included in distros like Fedora and Debian. And grant exceptions to his fav projects like HA /s
mpfundstein 5y ago
puh, what is the author an unfriendly dude. I really wonder how his package became so important for home assistant. I hope home assistent sees this and begins to develop a replacement for all of authors stuff.
SuperSandro2000 5y ago
Hey Hacker News, if you contributed to nixpkgs in the last months you have probably seen me already but for the people that don't know me already: I am Sandro, one of the more active reviewers and contributors of NixOS/nixpkgs in the last months. If you have any question about the situation or NixOS in generally feel free to drop me a comment and I try to answer them to the best of my knowledge. I can't speak for the entire NixOS organization so all my comments on this thread are my own views. I also do not receive any benefits from this in form of money or something else.
karmicthreat 5y ago
I can understand the author not wanting to deal with extra noise. But they did try to accommodate them. Forking and changing the contact info is probably the best tactic. The author didn't like that, but is probably the best outcome. Don't do open source (especially a very permissive licence) if you don't want others using your code as a dependency.
siraben 5y ago
Nixpkgs contributor here. One of the misunderstandings by frenck is how Nix operates[0], which is not via mutable site-packages folders but more accurately as an immutable graph structure. What this means is that to have home-assistant packaged properly, we need to also package its dependencies, which includes ambee. The argument that "In that case you are shipping an broken Home Assistant version."[1] is incorrect, since we also enable tests[2], when possible, on Python packages to ensure they are packaged correctly. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860043468 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86... [1] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860047453 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86... [2] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/821b34edaf9911481ad4dd5de6bea43739f578be/pkgs/development/python-modules/ambee/default.nix#L35 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/821b34edaf9911481ad4dd...
- pas 5y ago
  Isn't the argument that HA has this functionality, thus if it cannot download its plugins/manifests at runtime, then it can be considered not fully functional? (Even though Nix users likely consciously trade off that for reproducibility.)
  - SuperSandro2000 5y ago
    > Even though Nix users likely consciously trade off that for reproducibility. Even if home-assistant would download the files at runtime it can't put them at the right location and it would only work for python only packages.
bb88 5y ago
French stated he doesn't want to support broken distributions of ambee, like the version in the PR. Reminds me of this story: http://wiringpi.com/wiringpi-deprecated/ http://wiringpi.com/wiringpi-deprecated/
- soraminazuki 5y ago
  He claims it's broken without any specifics.
Firehawke 5y ago
Well, Home Assistant's handling of this is well-timed. I was just looking at the possibility of redoing my openHAB config in HA but this makes it really clear I don't want to go within a 150 mile radius of HA.
- aequitas 5y ago
  I've been using HA a lot in the past and written some components. But a while back they moved away from allowing pure YAML configurations and required some components to do setup via the GUI only. So it's not longer trivial to make a immutable deployment of HA since you will always need to manually make adjustments afterwards.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Hah! I guess they don't like the Nix approach on multiple levels :D.
- ticviking 5y ago
  I mean any package team who harasses people exercising rights they've explicitly granted is a bit concerning.
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
Both the comments on GitHub, and this thread are an absolutely awful look for open source, and it's feedback like this that drives excellent creators to stop creating open source projects, leaving the entire FOSS ecosystem left with half-assed solutions or hand-off maintainers who can do nothing more than nominal bugfixes once an original author leaves because of harassment. You're entitled to nothing when authors write FOSS. They provide it as-is. Take it or leave it. No one is obligated to take support harassment. The arguments left on GitHub are "well you chose this license" and generally, sure that's done out of good faith, but when organizations test the boundaries of an author's intent, they have no option but to relicense or dual-license. And you know what, this isn't even unique! Tons of FOSS projects do not support alternative distributions. In fact, implicitly, virtually no one does. Most authors publish software with the expectation you'll use their distribution channels.
- ris 5y ago
  The way an author expresses and codifies their "wishes" over redistribution is through a license. If the current license does not accurately reflect the author's "wishes", it should be amended. Otherwise it is bogus to declare that this software is under the MIT license. Having the author's wishes expressed in law ensures that all users can receive equal, non-discriminatory and predictable treatment, rather than having to walk on eggshells around what an author may or may not like you doing.
- lesto 5y ago
  > You're entitled to nothing when authors write FOSS. They provide it as-is. Take it or leave it. No one is obligated to take support harassment. the author of the lib literally pushed it to Home Assistant, so he gave it to a relatively famous project that is present in a lot of distro and Snapstore. Pushing to such project is a guarantee that your code will be repackaged. He could say it was a misunderstanding and require to be remove from HA, but to go to a project that uses the project that you PR your code into? eh. We have licensing for this reason and I am quite sure if frenck had choose the correct license/limitation from the beginning, it would have never been accepted into HA and this whole problem would have been avoided > Tons of FOSS projects do not support alternative distributions. In fact, implicitly, virtually no one does. Most authors publish software with the expectation you'll use their distribution channels. I don't think this is true, and the fact that already author's libs had been already packaged in Gentoo, Fedora and possibly more distro (and he said he will request to remove them) show how quickly alternative and well used channel can and will pick them up if not specified in your license. Especially if the project you are contributing is ALREADY packaged in different disto. source: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645
cfinnberg 5y ago
As I see it, the author want his software to be "de facto" not open source while retaining the Open source label. And he tries to achieve that by appealing to the kindness of the people: "I'm the author, please do like I say...". IMHO the author needs to put the license he really wants (restricting the use of his project) and deal with the consequences. If you put an open source license to your project people make certain assumptions... like they can use your project. If you want your software to be used in one and only one project and in a certain way, then it is not open source.
Ericson2314 5y ago
I often have a sinking feeling the free software world is going to fall apart because upstream developers don't know what the distro is even for (curation, consistency, etc.), and legacy distro downstream developers haven't kept up with any of the development rends in recent years (good or bad). The Nix community is one of the few that has feet in both camps, so it's all the more frustrating to see a stupid reaction like this; a traditionally distro wouldn't even bother packaging any of this stuff or engage at all.
- lesto 5y ago
  > a traditionally distro wouldn't even bother packaging any of this stuff or engage at all. unfortunately the library author made a PR to Home Assistant, a program that is packaged in many distro; all those distro will add his package. see https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Is home-assistant packaged in any traditional distro like Debian or Fedora? I didn't think so. So long as everyone is supposed to just grab some docker container or OS image from the home-assistent people, the traditional distros that should back up NixOS here won't even be looped in.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      There's literally a comment in there about Fedora having packaged it.
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        I'm glad to be wrong! Does fedora package all the python libs separately, or allow the deps to be vendored in this case?
ticviking 5y ago
The more I observe this situation the more I'm fascinated by the dynamic of his releasing an internal dependency to homekit as a "public library" leaning on the public infrastructure provided by python to distribute a dependency that he's actively hostile to anyone else using. IANAL but it seems to me that even if he switches to some custom no redistribution/repackageing license unless he stops using pypi's infrastructure he's granting all pypi users the right to publish the code independently. By uploading it to pypi he's explicitly given all users of pypi the right to publish it[1]. [1] - https://pypi.org/policy/terms-of-use/ https://pypi.org/policy/terms-of-use/
mijoharas 5y ago
It seems that the author has posted again on the github issue after it got unlocked [0]. They do finally go into a little more detail about what their issues are with the packaging, beyond the single post with details originally in the thread. > In the end, I think the way this project distributes Home Assistant (and its integrations, including Ambee) is not providing the intended working and thus may surprise the end user. In the end, those users are likely to knock on the doors of the Home Assistant project and their integration maintainers, not this project. As a matter of fact, most of my packages in this project are outdated and don't match the distributed version of Home Assistant. They don't seem to address why they don't think that any of the proposed solutions would have addressed their concerns. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860955128 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86...
majoram 5y ago
Anyone who claims to care about the mental health of open source devs should be on the author's side here
- aequitas 5y ago
  The author however is hired by the commercial entity behind Home assistant. And I'm not against making money using open source software. But when you build your company and income on an open source license and the work of others you should respect that license both ways.
  - ticviking 5y ago
    This kind of confirms my suspicion that what's really happening here is a commerical project is piggybacking on open source and goodwill to distribute components of their product using community infrastructure.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
emilfihlman 5y ago
I would suggest the author of the package use, say, this 4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. to force nixos either to fork completely or become humble again.
eptcyka 5y ago
I searched their forums and the issues on their core repo on Github, and cumulatively there are 20 issues that contain NixOS, of which some are created by NixOS maintainers themselves.
- robrorcroptrer 5y ago
  I was interested and also searched, here are the results: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues?q=is%3Aissue+nixos+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues?q=is%3Aissue+n... https://community.home-assistant.io/search?q=nixos https://community.home-assistant.io/search?q=nixos I sampled a few of the closed issues and it cemented my decision to not use Home-Assistant for my Zigbee setup at home because of the recent behavior of frenck and other Home-Assistant top tier persons.

280 points by waon 5y ago

It looks like the bigger question here is this: Is it the official policy of the home-assistant project that their software should not be packaged by NixOS? frenck is the fourth most active contributor to home-assistant - and it uses quite a few libraries he has authored: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors If frenck is saying NixOS can't package his libraries, he's actually enforcing that NixOS cannot package home-assistant. Is this direction agreed by the other maintainers of that project?

Denvercoder9 5y ago
> Is it the official policy of the home-assistant project that their software should not be packaged by NixOS? I have the impression that it is the policy of the home-assistant project that their software should not be run in any way not supported by them, and not redistributed by any distribution or other third party. They're somewhat actively hostile against people not following that.
- simonw 5y ago
  In which case I think that's the story here - this isn't so much about frenck v.s. NixOS as it is about home-assistant v.s. repackaging. Though if that's the case it seems misleading of frenck that he hasn't clarified that this is a home-assistant policy in any of his comments around this.
- ticviking 5y ago
  Why is it that projects grant rights to users and then are hostile to us using those rights?
  - rpdillon 5y ago
    This is what really confuses me! HA/frenk clearly are developing open source software, so they grant downstream users all the rights that go with that, including distribution rights. So far, so good, until folks actually leverage the rights frenk handed them and he shows up and says "Please respect my wishes and don't distribute my open source code." I can see how this is very confusing for a packaging team. It sounds like the "correct" approach here is for frenk (and HA?) to signal this lack of flexibility up front and stop distributing HA under an open source license. This will at least prevent other projects from investing in a packaging effort only to be asked to stop somewhere along the way.
    - ticviking 5y ago
      If they stop releasing it under an open source license then they lose access to all the free infrastructure that various companies and communities are providing.
      - aequitas 5y ago
        You can’t have your cake and eat it too. There are also a lot of contributors who might have an opinion about closing the license: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors https://github.com/home-assistant/core/graphs/contributors
kop316 5y ago
That is what is seems like: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-adding-library-dependencies-from-frenck/315185/30 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-addi... For context, balloob is the founder of Home Assistant

pfraze 5y ago

Really seems like you need to respect the author’s wishes here, but the tension between author and community can get complicated with FOSS. Open source is a contract with your audience that the code can be used freely. Authors gain their audience because of that contract, so there’s some obligation for them to respect that. That said, respect flows both ways, and I’ve had FOSS code get repackaged to steal credit which feels like just as much of a violation. (That’s not the issue here but it touches on the same challenge.) There’s no silver bullet. Sometimes things just don’t work out right and you need to fork or make an alternative. I’d personally lean towards making an alternative in this case, if it’s possible.

sneak 5y ago
The author's wishes are formally and legally specified in the copyright license to the code he wrote, which is MIT and allows redistribution. Everything else is simply noise. Once you make your software free, it isn't yours any longer and your opinions about it (or what others do with it) aren't relevant.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The author’s contractual wishes are specified there. It’s fine for an author to have additional, non-contractual wishes. (Legally, it’s equally fine for someone to follow or not follow those additional wishes.)
  - lucideer 5y ago
    Unless your non-contractual wishes are directly contradictory to your contractually stated wishes, and you actively harass the maintainers of a project that very politely choose to decline your non-contractual wishes.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    To be fair, you should not have used "legally" in the sentence above. So there's the license, there's the author's wish, and there's the other party's wish, and both wishes are equally valid, they don't have to agree at all, what matters is the license.

INTPenis 5y ago

I've seen a similar situation when Ansible were resolving issues with Jinja2 but Ansible contributors simply helped the Jinja contributors to resolve the issue. It wasn't like all the burden was put on the jinja project. Now those are two very active projects but what I mean is that no one is forcing the author of the repackaged code to support anyone he does not have time to support. If they want support they can ask the nixos project maintainers for it.

throwaaskjdfh 5y ago
It still takes effort to sort support requests into those he wants to handle and those he doesn't. If he thinks that the manner in which is work is being used is going to bury him with requests, whether he takes them or not, it makes sense to try to avoid the situation altogether. I don't think there's a way to actually do that with an open source project though.
- rubatuga 5y ago
  I think he’s so focused on time management (from his about page), that he is catastrophizing about the future. He also clearly wants the fame from having a library in Home Automation, but doesn’t want to provide any support.
  - jsmith45 5y ago
    He is a paid Home Assistant core developer. (Hired by the company the project's founder created to generate sustainable income for developing the project by offering optional value-add services). This library was written specifically to be used in Home Assistant, as per project policy the code that interfaces with devices needs to live in a separate python package. So there is no real fame to be had from this particular package. He surely sees this repackaging as a source of potential headaches. If the nix folks could convince him that the package would never contain modified code (no no untested/unsupportable modifications), and further that the home-assistant package in nix would always use exactly the version specified upstream (so no version mismatch concerns), he would likely be less opposed. Unfortunately the latter is very much not true right now.

waiseristy 5y ago

"Slightly assholic at first sight" kind of tells you all you need to know about how this developer will go about solving community problems.

geoah 5y ago
^ this is actually in the author's github profile. You can't make this shit up. https://github.com/frenck https://github.com/frenck > Slightly assholic at first sight Actually a nice guy that just likes to get stuff done. @home-assistant Herder @hassio-addons Creator

elmerfud 5y ago

Seems like an author that doesn't understand the spirit of FOSS. The nixos team was clearly allowed to use it and include it when asking for some technical merits as to why, and even offering many alternative options to appease the author the author seemed to just childishly stamp their feet and say, "because I said so". Eventually the author took the position of "taking my ball and going home". Why is a person like this even engaged in FOSS if they don't have a desire to share or even engage in a reasoned discussion?

sigzero 5y ago
Reading through all the comments that was my take as well.
nailer 5y ago
He doesn’t understand the letter of OSS either. Limiting who can distribute a project means it no longer meets the Open Source Definition and is therefore not OSS.
- mirthflat83 5y ago
  ?
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  No, he acknowledges explicitly early in the thread that the license allows the code to be redistributed with or without his approval.
  - viccuad 5y ago
    And later he states "Unfortunately, you are wrong there. I will explicitly and publicly list parties that are allowed distribution in the license and allow for requesting distribution requests." The "fine article" always contains the correct bits.
    - threwawasy1228 5y ago

Arnavion 5y ago

The package author has gone on to open issues for their other Python packages too - https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/created_by/frenck https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/created_by/frenck - currently five open (and locked) issues.

oauea 5y ago
"Upset open source developer spams other open source repository"?
bellBivDinesh 5y ago
Borders on harassment

arthurcolle 5y ago

Can someone elucidate why he is so against "his" code being used in this project?

verdverm 5y ago
The package author lays out the reasons in his comments
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
steveklabnik 5y ago
He says early in the thread: > If users experiencing issues with the ambee library in this package, they will knock on my door. And I'm not willing to support that or accept that burden. Especially as I don't see a good repacking reason in this case.
- jefftk 5y ago
  I mean, yes, but then when the NixOS folks offer something like: requiring users to explicitly set config.ambee.acceptThatThisPackageIsNotSupportedByUpstreamDevelopersAndIWillGoToNixpkgsToReportAnyIssues = true to be able to install the package, or they would get an error that would make it even clearer. Would that be enough for you? the author replies just: I feel like I'm starting to be on repeat now. Please don't add any of my stuff to this project.
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    Perhaps forking 'fully', and rebranding the fork, could be another option. That might help redirect the support burden downstream.
  - nmstoker 5y ago
    The author may well have plausible reasons but it was obvious from the overly curt tone he wasn't going to treat the discussion constructively

steveklabnik 5y ago

I am reminded of jwz, debian, and xscreensaver (Not linking to jwz's blog from HN because... he doesn't want it to be.)

pfraze 5y ago
That cracks me up every time
Hublium 5y ago
What's the story here?
- pfraze 5y ago
  If you link to jwz from HN, his server notices the referer header and serves an image that mocks the HN community
  - jakebasile 5y ago
    Looks like if you long press on it in iOS it gets through.
- jandrese 5y ago
  IIRC he had xscreensaver start spitting out error messages when it was old because Debian generally keeps package versions fixed per release, meaning if someone had a 2 year old but still updated version of Debian it would ship with a 2 year old version of xscreensaver. Jwz was tired of getting error reports for bugs fixed years ago because someone installed a the default "current" version on their Debian based OS.
oauea 5y ago
For anyone else interested: http://www.dereferer.org/?https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejwz%2Eorg%2Fblog%2F2016%2F04%2Fi%2Dwould%2Dlike%2Ddebian%2Dto%2Dstop%2Dshipping%2Dxscreensaver%2F http://www.dereferer.org/?https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejwz%2Eorg%2Fbl... (dereferer because jwz is hostile in case your browser sends referer header)
5y ago

63 5y ago

Is there greater context here that helps explain what's going on? Reading the comments in the thread didn't clarify much for me as someone unfamiliar with NixOS, their apparently unique Python packaging scheme, and Home Assistant.

res0nat0r 5y ago
He just doesn't want anything of his included in nixpkgs because he doesn't want to deal with anyone opening Github issues against his repos if there happen to be build / installation issues that are coming from some kind of failure in the nixpkgs install / build process.
- Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
  Also they offered various options to appease the author including code forking and the author rejected them all. Basically the team exhausted all of their options to make this author happy but the author seem not to understand the reality of FOSS. This author shouldn't be in the FOSS if the author is going to roadblock every options despite his licensing explicitly allows including the codes.
  - res0nat0r 5y ago
    Agreed. If he wants to be stubborn like this he just should change his licensing so it can't be included anywhere else upstream and that would put an end to it.
- lucideer 5y ago
  That's speculative on his part (noone has opened any issues with him, neither coming from nixos nor from any other repackaging). The nixos guys also offered various proposals to him to completely avoid any support burden on his part, all of which he roundly rejected. Seems he's just being unreasonable for the sake of it tbh; I can't see any logical reasoning behind it all.
  - res0nat0r 5y ago

ffggvv 5y ago

that frenck guy actually just comes off as an a-hole. especially with their passive aggressive responses. why are so many software people like this? maybe he should change his license

blowski 5y ago

I don’t really understand the details here. Seems like they disagree about the ease of avoiding it being repacked. Perhaps a good compromise would be for them to collaborate on a solution they’re both happy with. As it is, this conversation looks like: “can you not pls” “too difficult” “no it isn’t” “yes it is” ad infinitum.

throwaway84576 5y ago
He's not interested in that. The NixOS folks asked: "I'm also a little anxious that this thread has the potential to get heated quite quickly, so if you have the time and are willing to it might be worth setting up a quick Jitsi Meet to talk about this. Failing that, maybe we should pull this off into a separate issue thread so we can discuss there instead." but he replied curtly with "My wishes are above, please do not repack my code into this project. Please respect that request. It is a fairly simple request, nothing heated about it. I have no intention of spending time in this project. Thanks."
lucideer 5y ago
> a good compromise would be for them to collaborate If you read through the thread, the author makes it extremely clear that he has zero interest in collaborating or coming to any kind of mutually agreeable solution.

kissgyorgy 5y ago

If you don't understand the authors frustration, read Daniel Stenberg blog about what kind of requests he gets about curl. It's insane and ridiculous, not everybody is capable of/wanting to deal with all kinds of shit and hostile users like Daniel.

f311a 5y ago
That's not related to this particular issue though.
- kissgyorgy 5y ago
  You don't understand the issue then. The author don't want to deal with all kinds of requests unrelated to his own package. NixOS is an operating system, totally understandable he doesn't want to deal with OS issues.
  - f311a 5y ago
    Why would users report to his project when installing Home Assistant? That's not usually how it works and Home Assistant has a lot of other dependencies. His library was written specifically for Home Assistant and it's an internal dependency that no one usually sees. It's a 300 lines wrapper for Ambee API.
  - whateveracct 5y ago
    But people on NixOS may use his software...if not in nixpkgs then someone will just maintain their own overlay that many people use. It's impossible to stop - if there's demand by NixOS users for this software, they're gonna package it up and patch it in order to keep Nix Nix.. Hell, I could go make that overlay right now and link it in a nixpkgs issue for discoverability. What's this frenk person gonna do? Cut me an issue saying "pls delete this code from the internet"? Hah!
mcguire 5y ago
So...don't publish software? That's part of the game, no?

alexandrerond 5y ago

Funny that the author complains they have no time to support users, but they have time to waste that of other open source maintainers and users as if the wish to package their Open Source software deserved no respect.

evanelias 5y ago
> the author complains they have no time to support users In the github issue, as far as I can see, he doesn't "complain" at any point about having "no time to support users". What he does say is "I'm not willing to support that or accept that burden" [of supporting NixOS users], and "I have no intention of spending time in this project" [meaning NixOS]. It appears that he just isn't interested in NixOS or supporting NixOS users. That's absolutely his prerogative, and does not mean he is "complaining" about not having "enough time" for it. And regardless, how he chooses to spend his volunteer/unpaid time really isn't anyone else's business. There are some other valid criticisms here but I don't feel this particular point is a fair take.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

I don't see anything wrong here. I think licensing terms should heavily favor authors, because if you're writing FOSS, you're already giving away intellectual property for free. You don't need to suffer any degree of support. Software in most cases is literally provided "as-is." There are no fruits to bare from providing something for free. Clout doesn't pay the bills. I think people get really weird as soon as you cross the threshold of providing something for free versus something for even a nominal amount. As soon as you have to pay anything, it turns people off. Which is a good thing.

ggggtez 5y ago
Contrary to this, I think we do see FOSS authors post every now and then that when their packages explode in popularity, they can't provide meaningful support, and end up closing down their FOSS project instead. I think it's entitled to want to use someone's free work against their wishes. Why is he the bad guy? He acknowledges the licence allows it, but wants to change the licence in response to people wasting his time. That's surely fair game too.

bjt2n3904 5y ago

This is an extremely odd request for something licensed as MIT. Especially since the code layer is so thin. The project has existed for a week, and consists of 360 lines of python, most of which are get/set on what I think is JSON. Edit: Geez. Half the commits are bumping dependencies. The project is incredibly clean and beautifully structured, but gosh...

jandrese 5y ago
Totally worth the effort to re-implement/find an alternative when the code in question is so minimal. No need to deal with this guy.

relevant_thing 5y ago

A very similar thing happened when the folks at flathub tried to package MultiMC. Unfortunately the author threatened to sue for trademark infringement and they backed down. https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/1978#issuecomment-743741387 https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/1978#issuecomment-74...

Pentamerous 5y ago
> I'd liken this to rape, actually. I'm really astonished with this comparison.
Macha 5y ago
Huh, I'd been pretty happily using MultiMC for some time and even thought they were in the right of the Forge dispute. Might have to look for alternatives next time I get back into Minecraft.

gotts 5y ago

His About page https://frenck.dev/about/ https://frenck.dev/about/ looks a bit weird after I read that GitHub thread > I like to give back my knowledge and time to the open source community.

bogwog 5y ago
I think this is a cautionary tale about using social media while in a bad mood. Considering how unreasonable he was in that thread, I'm assuming he was just in a bad mood or something like that. Except now he's on the front page of HN with tons of comments criticizing him and painting him as a bad person. 99.999% of people will probably forget this by tomorrow, but it still would suck to be on the receiving end of this kind of attention I think.
- bellBivDinesh 5y ago
  He also opened issues about four of his packages being used in the project. Doesn’t seem like a spur of the moment thing.
- richardfey 5y ago
  I guess it's not his first rodeo, he simply doesn't want to support whatever version is packaged by NixOS. However the MIT license dictates what can or cannot be done. No need for further drama.
dwild 5y ago
How so? Seems like he does give back his knowledge and time to the open source community. Much more than me I can tell you, and probably more than many of people in thread. What he don't like is people expecting support from him in ways that differ his initial distribution methods, which makes sense when time is a limited ressource and he clearly has expectations on how he want to spend it.
- apple4ever 5y ago
  Except literally the Nix folks were making suggestions to ensure there would be no expectations go support.

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deif 5y ago

I find it quite amusing that the package author refuses to act reasonably and states he wishes to spend no time on the project, whilst being pulled further into the project. If he simply willingly engaged with the project owners to resolve the situation he could avoided: 1. Spending so much time trying to get the project to stop what they were doing. 2. Peacefully come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. 3. Front page HN where I will most certainly be avoiding using any project the author is part of.

type0 5y ago
This attitude has done a lot of reputational damage to Home Assistant which is unfortunate.
- eptcyka 5y ago
  I am considering moving over to alternative already. I don't want to be dependent on a project that actively dissuades people packaging it up.

shadowgovt 5y ago

This is an interesting example of how social concerns interact with technical concerns in the real world. We sometimes like to think that software architecture decisions are made by rational actors using logic to choose the technically best solutions, but here's an interesting example where Home Assistant may need to change its dependencies because the author of the library it relies on is too difficult to work with.

sleepydog 5y ago

I fail to see why the author could not add instructions to their project's issue tracker, something to the effect of "If you want to report a bug, please reproduce the issue with the latest pypi package. Reports for any other deployment methods will be closed without further discussion."

aequitas 5y ago
A lot of people don't RTFM.

system2 5y ago

God, tiny piece of code. Rewriting would take less time than arguing.

waiseristy 5y ago
Or just fork it. Obtuse developers getting their projects forked out of their control is a tale as old as FOSS

sergiomattei 5y ago

Yeah, while I get the maintainer's point, the conversation rapidly devolved into giving the Nix maintainers a hard time. I mean, c'mon, Nix is a tiny niche. It's not like the support burden will be colossal.

pbronez 5y ago
Plus Nix is a crazy deep rabbit hole. If you're at the point where you're trying to make something work with Nix, you'll know when the problem is upstream and when it isn't.

cmm 5y ago

regardless of the specifics here, stuff like this is liable to pop up a lot in the coming several years while NixOS is gaining more popularity but casual (as in "not willing to put in the effort of supporting off-beat distributions") OSS authors can still reasonably ignore it. the amount of patching that Nixpkgs packagers have to do sometimes is pretty extreme

whateveracct 5y ago
Nothing wrong with patching Part of the beauty of Nix is it's easy to maintain patches - this can be nice cost-wise compared to upstreaming in many cases. Not saying upstreaming isn't a generally good thing, but it's nice to have this other option.
- jonringer117 5y ago
  Generally if the patch is not-specific to nixpkgs, we ask the contributor to upstream the patch, and then we have a `fetchpatch` utility which makes it easy to pull from an upstream source.

javert 5y ago

The dev deserved to be treated kindly, by default. But by being unkind himself, he surrendered that privilege. So now he won't and shouldn't get what he asked for. I don't understand how an adult human could fail to understand this. Asking a favor while simultaneously being a jerk is not likely to work.

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braza 5y ago

I agree with the point that this is a FOSS, but as author I would be terrified if some downstream users started some mobbing me [1] due to upstream changes as we saw in the FastAPI Pydantic meltdown [2]. [1] - https://twitter.com/ChristianHeimes/status/1382815260558655497 https://twitter.com/ChristianHeimes/status/13828152605586554... [2] - https://github.com/samuelcolvin/pydantic/issues/2678#issuecomment-823539148 https://github.com/samuelcolvin/pydantic/issues/2678#issueco...

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yongjik 5y ago

Am I missing something, or is the project in question literally just one week old? https://pypi.org/project/ambee/#history https://pypi.org/project/ambee/#history https://github.com/frenck/python-ambee/commits/main https://github.com/frenck/python-ambee/commits/main

ticviking 5y ago
If the response to someone finding and using your work is the kind of over the top demand to "don't use the thing I just released under a permissive license" with multiple replies that amount to, "Don't use the thing in a way I don't like kthanxbai" how can you depend on it?
- aequitas 5y ago
  The project is written specifically for Home assistant by a core developer, it's not a small time developer who's project got accidentally included in a major project.
  - ticviking 5y ago
    I'm not sure how that's relevant. When we release software to others under an open license we are explicitly allowing them to do exactly what nix is doing. I'm not sure what other reason we have a component independently deployable other than to make it usable by people in other projects. AFAICT it's kind of the opposite problem to systemd owning unrelated stuff because it's easier on those developers.
- dwild 5y ago
  > If the response to someone finding and using your work That wasn't the issue and it's crazy how much people interpreted it as such. His issue is with how it was packaged with it. He want it to be exclusively distributed using PIP. If you don't want to depends on PIP, well sure don't use it.
  - trenchgun 5y ago

koreanguy 5y ago

what a complete moron, acting like a little spoiled punk , they offered to fork it completely to avoid the issue and he rejected still.

whateveracct 5y ago

What's worse is this frenk guy seems to be the reason his packages are being added to nixpkgs He added the dependency himself https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 Nobody gives a shit about frenk or his code directly here - they want to use Home Assistant. But now that frenk added his code as a dependency, he has the right to transitively make Home Assistant un-packagable on NixOS? EDIT: On top of that, the way NixOS works is philosophically in-line with Home Assistant > Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first Pinning every Python dependency instead of fetching HEAD is how you get local control and security!

noahtallen 5y ago
I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure that Frenk’s license has to be compatible with home assistance’s license for it to be included. If home assistance has a normal OSS license, I doubt it can use a dependency with a very restrictive license. (Such as one with a list of what can use it!) In other words, I don’t think it’s possible form him to transitively make home assistant’s license more restrictive.
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  Home Assistant itself uses the Apache 2.0 license, which is pretty permissive. It doesn't impose much requirements on derivative works, so it can use a dependency with a restrictive license without problem. However, this would become problematic if Home Assistant also uses a GPL dependency (which it probably does). That dependency would impose a requirement that all other libraries used by Home Assistant use a GPL-compatible license (which his license likely wouldn't be).
lesto 5y ago
> Pinning every Python dependency instead of fetching HEAD is how you get local control and security! yes it is? they make sure the user get a specific version that is (hopefully) vetted and know as working properly; this is much safer than pulling HEAD for a 3th party repo. As long as the libs are updated regularly and when security issue are found, I see no problem with this approach > he has the right to transitively make Home Assistant un-packagable on NixOS? Pretty sure a custom license is not compatible with the Apache 2 license of "Home Assistant"; also as the code is in use by a third party, the author should not be able to retroactively change license, only next releases. Probably will be forked or removed depending on the specific of the case and of the code.

FemmeAndroid 5y ago

Here's the thread NixOS posted to the Home Assistant forums, "Consider to avoid adding library dependencies from frenck." https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-adding-library-dependencies-from-frenck/315185 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/consider-to-avoid-addi...

lucideer 5y ago
Wow, that thread is wild. If the views in that discussion are generally representative of the perspective of a majority of homeassistant maintainers & stewards, I'd be extremely wary of relying on the software long term. > Just do as he asks This is the absolute antithesis of the intent of open source. What an awful community response.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  > What an awful community response. You're expecting an entirely unrelated community of users to be invested in the goals and interests of NixOS. They're not, and perhaps they see Frenk's point in a way that people that aren't part of their community do not.
  - danhor 5y ago
    What Frenk is effectively saying is that he doesn't want his packages redistributed by distros. Since this is a dependency of home assistant, this means home assistant (as the whole package) can't be distributed if his wishes are respected. Additionally Frenk didn't react to any proposal to still distribute home assistant and it's dependencies while respecting his wishes. This seems like a pretty clear-cut case of involving the upstream community, to make sure they're aware and ok with their dependencies trying to block distribution or to change something if that's not the case. The whole saga left me rethinking my home assistant usage, since it seems like this could become a larger issue with other distribution mechanism not sanctioned by upstream.
  - totony 5y ago
    Arguably the home assistant community is fragmented. What if Debian policy or whatever distro they use is targeted next? IMO there was no discussion in that thread just "remove from no" "we can't do that" repeat

domenkozar 5y ago

It's interesting since from https://github.com/sponsors/frenck#sponsors https://github.com/sponsors/frenck#sponsors he pitches: > Are you enjoying my work? And want to support me in my effort helping the world to become a better place by dedicating my time & knowledge to create & innovate open source software solutions. Allowing everybody on this earth the privilege to enjoy those things for free?

acid__ 5y ago
Seems like he understands the “free” in FOSS to mean free as in beer, not as in freedom.
nextlevelwizard 5y ago
Yeah the fact that the repo's readme starts with links to money begging links just makes this weirder. Really looks to me that Mr. Nijhof doesnt quiet get what open source is about.

alexaholic 5y ago

This looks like an attempt to ridicule the guy. He’s made a simple request and he doesn’t have to explain himself. The other parties can comply or not, they may ask questions or not, but surely publishing this non-story to HN and have people interpret his actions, fantasize about his understanding of OSS, their social skills etc, and eventually deride him is a bit hostile and immature. Folks, he’s a human being. He’s made his desire known and you don’t have to like it, understand it, or agree with it. Just leave him be.

pas 5y ago
Like his request, the submitter can simply submit this to HN for us to simply look at it and, like the author, we can simply share our thoughts, and everyone is free to think and feel whatever they do. We are human too, social animals and all that. Are HN readers/commenters known for harassment? How alone are folks supposed to leave him?
- alexaholic 5y ago
  You can be free and not deride anyone, both at the same time
- npteljes 5y ago
  I have no answer for your last question, and I don't think there's a well defined line. Maybe the line is that we shouldn't share comment drama. The reality is that these kinds of discussions can lead to bullying, and that's what's not so simple about just discussing issues like this.
npteljes 5y ago
I agree that situations like this are scary, because they can lead to mob mentality. I wonder why you're downvoted for this.

jonringer117 5y ago

Related context: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126319 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126319 In response to "not having the latest": Generally we (nixpkgs) lag behind a bit, as managing ~60-100k packages takes some time. But as long as the process to build a package hasn't changed, we will have a bot which automatically attempts to update packages based on metadata from pypi, github, and repology.

supurbly 5y ago

Looks like frenck plans to file issues against Fedora too: > I just did notice Fedora redistributing some of my packages because of your question, so will file a similar request with them. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860051291 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86...

type0 5y ago
This will be interesting to see how they will react. Btw speaking of licenses, since frenck said he will be changing it by adding exceptions and making it non-free. Douglas Crockford said in one of the talks that one certain three letter company contacted him and wanted to use JSON format but weren't sure they could comply with "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." And he gave them that exception by stating: "I thereby allow ** to use JSON for Evil". My advise to Frenck is to adopt some similar proprietary license if he wants his work not be included in distros like Fedora and Debian. And grant exceptions to his fav projects like HA /s

mpfundstein 5y ago

puh, what is the author an unfriendly dude. I really wonder how his package became so important for home assistant. I hope home assistent sees this and begins to develop a replacement for all of authors stuff.

SuperSandro2000 5y ago

Hey Hacker News, if you contributed to nixpkgs in the last months you have probably seen me already but for the people that don't know me already: I am Sandro, one of the more active reviewers and contributors of NixOS/nixpkgs in the last months. If you have any question about the situation or NixOS in generally feel free to drop me a comment and I try to answer them to the best of my knowledge. I can't speak for the entire NixOS organization so all my comments on this thread are my own views. I also do not receive any benefits from this in form of money or something else.

karmicthreat 5y ago

I can understand the author not wanting to deal with extra noise. But they did try to accommodate them. Forking and changing the contact info is probably the best tactic. The author didn't like that, but is probably the best outcome. Don't do open source (especially a very permissive licence) if you don't want others using your code as a dependency.

siraben 5y ago

Nixpkgs contributor here. One of the misunderstandings by frenck is how Nix operates[0], which is not via mutable site-packages folders but more accurately as an immutable graph structure. What this means is that to have home-assistant packaged properly, we need to also package its dependencies, which includes ambee. The argument that "In that case you are shipping an broken Home Assistant version."[1] is incorrect, since we also enable tests[2], when possible, on Python packages to ensure they are packaged correctly. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860043468 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86... [1] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860047453 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86... [2] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/821b34edaf9911481ad4dd5de6bea43739f578be/pkgs/development/python-modules/ambee/default.nix#L35 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/821b34edaf9911481ad4dd...

pas 5y ago
Isn't the argument that HA has this functionality, thus if it cannot download its plugins/manifests at runtime, then it can be considered not fully functional? (Even though Nix users likely consciously trade off that for reproducibility.)
- SuperSandro2000 5y ago
  > Even though Nix users likely consciously trade off that for reproducibility. Even if home-assistant would download the files at runtime it can't put them at the right location and it would only work for python only packages.

bb88 5y ago

French stated he doesn't want to support broken distributions of ambee, like the version in the PR. Reminds me of this story: http://wiringpi.com/wiringpi-deprecated/ http://wiringpi.com/wiringpi-deprecated/

soraminazuki 5y ago
He claims it's broken without any specifics.

Firehawke 5y ago

Well, Home Assistant's handling of this is well-timed. I was just looking at the possibility of redoing my openHAB config in HA but this makes it really clear I don't want to go within a 150 mile radius of HA.

aequitas 5y ago
I've been using HA a lot in the past and written some components. But a while back they moved away from allowing pure YAML configurations and required some components to do setup via the GUI only. So it's not longer trivial to make a immutable deployment of HA since you will always need to manually make adjustments afterwards.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Hah! I guess they don't like the Nix approach on multiple levels :D.
ticviking 5y ago
I mean any package team who harasses people exercising rights they've explicitly granted is a bit concerning.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

Both the comments on GitHub, and this thread are an absolutely awful look for open source, and it's feedback like this that drives excellent creators to stop creating open source projects, leaving the entire FOSS ecosystem left with half-assed solutions or hand-off maintainers who can do nothing more than nominal bugfixes once an original author leaves because of harassment. You're entitled to nothing when authors write FOSS. They provide it as-is. Take it or leave it. No one is obligated to take support harassment. The arguments left on GitHub are "well you chose this license" and generally, sure that's done out of good faith, but when organizations test the boundaries of an author's intent, they have no option but to relicense or dual-license. And you know what, this isn't even unique! Tons of FOSS projects do not support alternative distributions. In fact, implicitly, virtually no one does. Most authors publish software with the expectation you'll use their distribution channels.

ris 5y ago
The way an author expresses and codifies their "wishes" over redistribution is through a license. If the current license does not accurately reflect the author's "wishes", it should be amended. Otherwise it is bogus to declare that this software is under the MIT license. Having the author's wishes expressed in law ensures that all users can receive equal, non-discriminatory and predictable treatment, rather than having to walk on eggshells around what an author may or may not like you doing.
lesto 5y ago
> You're entitled to nothing when authors write FOSS. They provide it as-is. Take it or leave it. No one is obligated to take support harassment. the author of the lib literally pushed it to Home Assistant, so he gave it to a relatively famous project that is present in a lot of distro and Snapstore. Pushing to such project is a guarantee that your code will be repackaged. He could say it was a misunderstanding and require to be remove from HA, but to go to a project that uses the project that you PR your code into? eh. We have licensing for this reason and I am quite sure if frenck had choose the correct license/limitation from the beginning, it would have never been accepted into HA and this whole problem would have been avoided > Tons of FOSS projects do not support alternative distributions. In fact, implicitly, virtually no one does. Most authors publish software with the expectation you'll use their distribution channels. I don't think this is true, and the fact that already author's libs had been already packaged in Gentoo, Fedora and possibly more distro (and he said he will request to remove them) show how quickly alternative and well used channel can and will pick them up if not specified in your license. Especially if the project you are contributing is ALREADY packaged in different disto. source: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645

cfinnberg 5y ago

As I see it, the author want his software to be "de facto" not open source while retaining the Open source label. And he tries to achieve that by appealing to the kindness of the people: "I'm the author, please do like I say...". IMHO the author needs to put the license he really wants (restricting the use of his project) and deal with the consequences. If you put an open source license to your project people make certain assumptions... like they can use your project. If you want your software to be used in one and only one project and in a certain way, then it is not open source.

Ericson2314 5y ago

I often have a sinking feeling the free software world is going to fall apart because upstream developers don't know what the distro is even for (curation, consistency, etc.), and legacy distro downstream developers haven't kept up with any of the development rends in recent years (good or bad). The Nix community is one of the few that has feet in both camps, so it's all the more frustrating to see a stupid reaction like this; a traditionally distro wouldn't even bother packaging any of this stuff or engage at all.

lesto 5y ago
> a traditionally distro wouldn't even bother packaging any of this stuff or engage at all. unfortunately the library author made a PR to Home Assistant, a program that is packaged in many distro; all those distro will add his package. see https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645 https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/51645
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Is home-assistant packaged in any traditional distro like Debian or Fedora? I didn't think so. So long as everyone is supposed to just grab some docker container or OS image from the home-assistent people, the traditional distros that should back up NixOS here won't even be looped in.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    There's literally a comment in there about Fedora having packaged it.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      I'm glad to be wrong! Does fedora package all the python libs separately, or allow the deps to be vendored in this case?

ticviking 5y ago

The more I observe this situation the more I'm fascinated by the dynamic of his releasing an internal dependency to homekit as a "public library" leaning on the public infrastructure provided by python to distribute a dependency that he's actively hostile to anyone else using. IANAL but it seems to me that even if he switches to some custom no redistribution/repackageing license unless he stops using pypi's infrastructure he's granting all pypi users the right to publish the code independently. By uploading it to pypi he's explicitly given all users of pypi the right to publish it[1]. [1] - https://pypi.org/policy/terms-of-use/ https://pypi.org/policy/terms-of-use/

mijoharas 5y ago

It seems that the author has posted again on the github issue after it got unlocked [0]. They do finally go into a little more detail about what their issues are with the packaging, beyond the single post with details originally in the thread. > In the end, I think the way this project distributes Home Assistant (and its integrations, including Ambee) is not providing the intended working and thus may surprise the end user. In the end, those users are likely to knock on the doors of the Home Assistant project and their integration maintainers, not this project. As a matter of fact, most of my packages in this project are outdated and don't match the distributed version of Home Assistant. They don't seem to address why they don't think that any of the proposed solutions would have addressed their concerns. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-860955128 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326#issuecomment-86...

majoram 5y ago

Anyone who claims to care about the mental health of open source devs should be on the author's side here

aequitas 5y ago
The author however is hired by the commercial entity behind Home assistant. And I'm not against making money using open source software. But when you build your company and income on an open source license and the work of others you should respect that license both ways.
- ticviking 5y ago
  This kind of confirms my suspicion that what's really happening here is a commerical project is piggybacking on open source and goodwill to distribute components of their product using community infrastructure.

deleted 5y ago

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emilfihlman 5y ago

I would suggest the author of the package use, say, this 4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. to force nixos either to fork completely or become humble again.

eptcyka 5y ago

I searched their forums and the issues on their core repo on Github, and cumulatively there are 20 issues that contain NixOS, of which some are created by NixOS maintainers themselves.

robrorcroptrer 5y ago
I was interested and also searched, here are the results: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues?q=is%3Aissue+nixos+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues?q=is%3Aissue+n... https://community.home-assistant.io/search?q=nixos https://community.home-assistant.io/search?q=nixos I sampled a few of the closed issues and it cemented my decision to not use Home-Assistant for my Zigbee setup at home because of the recent behavior of frenck and other Home-Assistant top tier persons.