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Let me be very direct - I disagree quite a lot with your characterizations in this post. If anything, I am probably much more closely aligned with Jake's "perso

Let me be very direct - I disagree quite a lot with your characterizations in this post. If anything, I am probably much more closely aligned with Jake's "personal politics", since I also signed the first open letter about rejecting military sponsorship for future events. I felt the second open letter was not well thought out or well argued, so I didn't sign that one, but I do think it's clearly a net positive for Eelco to step way way back and that he has been in no way contributing to healing or progress during this debacle. I resented people building fiefdoms because they're often commercially motivated and used to drive consulting engagements. They fragment the community on a deeply technical level, ruining code reuse and interoperability, for negligible technical improvements. I don't have any idea what the authors' views on project governance or human rights are, that wasn't a factor for me.

kortilla 2y ago
> rejecting military sponsorship for future events Presumably you reject everything supported by money from DARPA?
- viraptor 2y ago
  Insert "yet you participate in society. curious!.jpg"
  - kortilla 2y ago
    You don’t understand that meme. DARPA is direct military money for a bunch of tech people are happy with supporting. They just pretend it’s not the military so they don’t have to have any hard moral conflicts.
    - viraptor 2y ago
      Oh I do. We're chatting now on an evolution of DARPA network. If anyone rejects all DARPA projects, they're not on the internet. Yet you can be on the internet and make things a bit better by rejecting military sponsorship/influence in things you're involved in today.
      - kortilla 2y ago
        I should have been more clear. This set of people that don’t like sponsorship from Boeing, Lockheed, etc would absolutely swoon over a DARPA grant.
      - exe34 2y ago
        all you're doing is making DARPA funding have even more reach and success!
      - darthrupert 2y ago
        In what way does rejecting military sponsorships make things better?
        mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
        Gonna answer your question at face value. Sponsorships are generally acknowledged with quid-pro-quo advertising opportunities - otherwise they'd be called silent donations. In the case of tech conferences like the inciting incident, that means your logo everywhere, maybe an ad spot in between talks, and booth space. You might get some intangible reputational benefits from whatever other sponsors are present if they are viewed as highly prestigious or respected. Might even have opportunities to do a talk by one of your employees, we've all been to conferences where a vendor conspicuously also has a talk that coincidentally features their products heavily. All in all, it can elevate your perceived legitimacy in various ways. Advertising might get you more business or more applicants and thereby grow your reach and success. In terms of my personal values I'm a pacifist. I don't want to see something I like(d), something I made modest code contributions to, used to advertise for a commercial military organization that manufactures equipment for violence. It's the same way a vegan probably doesn't want to see advertisements by the beef farming industry or that someone who cares about renewable energy and sustainability doesn't want to see sponsorship by someone whose holdings are a huge stake in coal mining and fossil-fuel power plants. In the case of the inciting incident, it wasn't a case of massive dollar amounts, it was ~$5k USD and it wouldn't have jeopardized the conference at all to say no thank you.
        2y ago
- deletedie 2y ago
  He's rejecting the sponsor, not the product
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    I always find this moral duality quite interesting, the product only exists because of the sponsor.
    - diffeomorphism 2y ago
      No, it not because of "the" sponsor, but because of sponsoring in general. Replace the sponsor by any other company/institution/patreon/....
    - talldayo 2y ago
      You seem to be unfamiliar with the situation, then. The sponsor wasn't for NixOS itself, but a related in-person event. NixOS had existed for literal decades prior to this.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    I highly doubt he would reject DARPA as a sponsor for NixOS. This was just celebrated by a bunch of safety people that have significant overlap with NixOS security goals: https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust
sshine 2y ago
> it's clearly a net positive for Eelco to step way way back and that he has been in no way contributing to healing Just let people do their thing. You’re not a bad person if you have nothing wise to say about people being hurt, and lots to say about resolving dependency constraints. > fragment the community on a deeply technical level, ruining code reuse and interoperability Most Nix consultancies I encounter make highly reusable flakes. flake-parts, flake-utils, fenix. They have a small commercial spot in their package’s namespace, and the first reason you look them up is “I wonder if they’re doing other smart Nix things that I can copy”, and they usually do.
- MrJohz 2y ago
  You're not a bad person, but you might be a poor leader in that situation, which, as I understand it, is the main focus of the complaint. There's a difference between letting people do their thing, and letting them lead a large community of developers despite that not being their strength.
  - sshine 2y ago
    > in no way contributing to healing > might be a poor leader in that situation FUD. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-giving-power-to-the-community/44552 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-giving-... > While the foundation board was never intended to lead the community, we cannot deny that it is perceived to be in that role by many, and we therefore take full accountability. [...] Eelco is the principal author of Nix and undoubtedly a central figure in the ecosystem that grew around it. We confirm that Eelco showed no intention to be perceived as or act like the BDFL of the Nix ecosystem, or the Nix code base. *To commit to that in a timely manner, he has decided to formally step down from the board. This decision was made amicably and in mutual agreement with the board that this is the right thing to do.* Our collaboration was always characterised by our deep respect for Eelco’s work and our awareness of his lasting impact on our lives.
    - MrJohz 2y ago
      Fwiw, I'm not a Nix user nor am I really following the whole discussion here. I'm not trying to spread "FUD", just point out that there's a difference between "bad person" and "bad at the role one is currently in". That said, as a complete outsider, the quote "the foundation board was never intended to lead the community" is wild to me. It sounds like the director of NASA going "I never intended this role to have anything to do with space". I think I understand the meaning behind the sentence - they wanted to support the community, but that the community leads itself in some way - but I can also see why the community would see them as having that leadership role that they apparently wanted to avoid. I also don't understand why someone who wanted a purely technical role would ever be on that board in the first place. Like I said, I'm not really following this debacle, and I don't know the details. I'm just amazed at that quote, which seems very revealing to me.
bfrog 2y ago
The second letter saying TL;DR "fuck you Eelco, kind regards". I'll never understand the motives here. Never. Please let me know when you've spent decades creating something and I'll be sure to shit all over you in kind.
- KingMob 2y ago
  What if, and hear me out, technical excellence and community stewardship are uncorrelated?

kortilla 2y ago

> rejecting military sponsorship for future events Presumably you reject everything supported by money from DARPA?

viraptor 2y ago
Insert "yet you participate in society. curious!.jpg"
- kortilla 2y ago
  You don’t understand that meme. DARPA is direct military money for a bunch of tech people are happy with supporting. They just pretend it’s not the military so they don’t have to have any hard moral conflicts.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    Oh I do. We're chatting now on an evolution of DARPA network. If anyone rejects all DARPA projects, they're not on the internet. Yet you can be on the internet and make things a bit better by rejecting military sponsorship/influence in things you're involved in today.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      I should have been more clear. This set of people that don’t like sponsorship from Boeing, Lockheed, etc would absolutely swoon over a DARPA grant.
    - exe34 2y ago
      all you're doing is making DARPA funding have even more reach and success!
    - darthrupert 2y ago
      In what way does rejecting military sponsorships make things better?
      - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
        Gonna answer your question at face value. Sponsorships are generally acknowledged with quid-pro-quo advertising opportunities - otherwise they'd be called silent donations. In the case of tech conferences like the inciting incident, that means your logo everywhere, maybe an ad spot in between talks, and booth space. You might get some intangible reputational benefits from whatever other sponsors are present if they are viewed as highly prestigious or respected. Might even have opportunities to do a talk by one of your employees, we've all been to conferences where a vendor conspicuously also has a talk that coincidentally features their products heavily. All in all, it can elevate your perceived legitimacy in various ways. Advertising might get you more business or more applicants and thereby grow your reach and success. In terms of my personal values I'm a pacifist. I don't want to see something I like(d), something I made modest code contributions to, used to advertise for a commercial military organization that manufactures equipment for violence. It's the same way a vegan probably doesn't want to see advertisements by the beef farming industry or that someone who cares about renewable energy and sustainability doesn't want to see sponsorship by someone whose holdings are a huge stake in coal mining and fossil-fuel power plants. In the case of the inciting incident, it wasn't a case of massive dollar amounts, it was ~$5k USD and it wouldn't have jeopardized the conference at all to say no thank you.
        2y ago
deletedie 2y ago
He's rejecting the sponsor, not the product
- pjmlp 2y ago
  I always find this moral duality quite interesting, the product only exists because of the sponsor.
  - diffeomorphism 2y ago
    No, it not because of "the" sponsor, but because of sponsoring in general. Replace the sponsor by any other company/institution/patreon/....
  - talldayo 2y ago
    You seem to be unfamiliar with the situation, then. The sponsor wasn't for NixOS itself, but a related in-person event. NixOS had existed for literal decades prior to this.
- kortilla 2y ago
  I highly doubt he would reject DARPA as a sponsor for NixOS. This was just celebrated by a bunch of safety people that have significant overlap with NixOS security goals: https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust https://www.darpa.mil/program/translating-all-c-to-rust

sshine 2y ago

> it's clearly a net positive for Eelco to step way way back and that he has been in no way contributing to healing Just let people do their thing. You’re not a bad person if you have nothing wise to say about people being hurt, and lots to say about resolving dependency constraints. > fragment the community on a deeply technical level, ruining code reuse and interoperability Most Nix consultancies I encounter make highly reusable flakes. flake-parts, flake-utils, fenix. They have a small commercial spot in their package’s namespace, and the first reason you look them up is “I wonder if they’re doing other smart Nix things that I can copy”, and they usually do.

MrJohz 2y ago
You're not a bad person, but you might be a poor leader in that situation, which, as I understand it, is the main focus of the complaint. There's a difference between letting people do their thing, and letting them lead a large community of developers despite that not being their strength.
- sshine 2y ago
  > in no way contributing to healing > might be a poor leader in that situation FUD. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-giving-power-to-the-community/44552 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-giving-... > While the foundation board was never intended to lead the community, we cannot deny that it is perceived to be in that role by many, and we therefore take full accountability. [...] Eelco is the principal author of Nix and undoubtedly a central figure in the ecosystem that grew around it. We confirm that Eelco showed no intention to be perceived as or act like the BDFL of the Nix ecosystem, or the Nix code base. *To commit to that in a timely manner, he has decided to formally step down from the board. This decision was made amicably and in mutual agreement with the board that this is the right thing to do.* Our collaboration was always characterised by our deep respect for Eelco’s work and our awareness of his lasting impact on our lives.
  - MrJohz 2y ago
    Fwiw, I'm not a Nix user nor am I really following the whole discussion here. I'm not trying to spread "FUD", just point out that there's a difference between "bad person" and "bad at the role one is currently in". That said, as a complete outsider, the quote "the foundation board was never intended to lead the community" is wild to me. It sounds like the director of NASA going "I never intended this role to have anything to do with space". I think I understand the meaning behind the sentence - they wanted to support the community, but that the community leads itself in some way - but I can also see why the community would see them as having that leadership role that they apparently wanted to avoid. I also don't understand why someone who wanted a purely technical role would ever be on that board in the first place. Like I said, I'm not really following this debacle, and I don't know the details. I'm just amazed at that quote, which seems very revealing to me.

bfrog 2y ago

The second letter saying TL;DR "fuck you Eelco, kind regards". I'll never understand the motives here. Never. Please let me know when you've spent decades creating something and I'll be sure to shit all over you in kind.

KingMob 2y ago
What if, and hear me out, technical excellence and community stewardship are uncorrelated?