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The Nixpkgs Core team was established in Sept 2025 (https://discourse.nixos.org/t/establishing-the-nixpkgs-core-team/69743 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/establi

The Nixpkgs Core team was established in Sept 2025 (https://discourse.nixos.org/t/establishing-the-nixpkgs-core-team/69743 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/establishing-the-nixpkgs-core-...), so it is a fairly new concept and idea. They've accomplished some good things as highlighted in the post, but are now stepping down. Yes, we'd prefer for the team to exist, but we've also functioned without one for ~20 years. It may take multiple iterations to bootstrap the concept and to figure out the right structure - or we may find it isn't needed. So no, this is not a critical emergency. It's a return to the status quo of late last year. That being said, I think it is still a concept worth pursuing.

xyzzy_plugh 2mo ago
I agree with the concept but the name is terrible. "Core team" gives one the impression that this is the most important team to the project. It's not! It could be called the "governance facilitator" team or admins or something. Please name the next iteration something less spicy.
- jonringer117 2mo ago
  There was an architecture team which existed, I would assume the usage of "core" was to disambiguate. https://github.com/nixpkgs-architecture https://github.com/nixpkgs-architecture
- nextaccountic 2mo ago
  exactly what rust devs realized. they went from "core team" to "leadership council" in the next iteratiion
shevy-java 2mo ago
Packages were handled way before 2025 already, so it is strange that you insinuate they'd all only burn out within a year, and before that it was all cake and tea. NixOS is dying, everyone sees this right now. > but we've also functioned without one for ~20 years. Then this is also a PR problem because why need a team when the 20 years before were allegedly so perfect?
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- embedding-shape 2mo ago
  > NixOS is dying, everyone sees this right now. Huh? Based on what? The packages I use keep getting updated, so clearly nixpkgs is alive. The OS I use keep getting updated, so clearly NixOS is alive to. Who exactly is dying, and what makes you believe that?
  - Pay08 2mo ago
    Isn't nixpkgs still a pretty bad state? I know there used to be a lot of "abandoned" packages that went years without updating to the new versions provided by upstream, that a lot of packages were copying binaries around instead of building open source software from the source, etc.
    - toshinoriyagi 2mo ago
      Nixpkgs is one of, if not the largest, package managers by # of packages. I think naturally that will result in more abandoned packages than others. What is the % of abandoned packages relative to total I can't say. Nix tends to have updates almost as quickly as Arch does, I run a lot of bleeding edge software and have no issues, and the breadth of packages is immense. Nix just has a different style. With the AUR, you can adopt an abandoned package more easily. That has pros and cons (the AUR has recently suffered multiple supply-chain attacks due to packages being adopted and infected).
      - Pay08 2mo ago
        > Nixpkgs is one of, if not the largest, package managers by # of packages. I'm fairly certain that the graph you're thinking of is complete bullshit. It only had approximately a third of the package count listed for a particular Ubuntu version than said version had in actuality.
        2mo ago
dindresto 2mo ago
"we've also functioned without one for ~20 years" I'm sorry to say that this is a highly ignorant reaction to the situation. Nixpkgs was nowhere the size it is now in terms of contributors and packages, the growth in the past six years was enormous.
- gcarvalho 2mo ago
  I don't mean to be dismissive of the work done by the team which just resigned, and hope they get back on their feet. But also out of those 6y the core team did not exist for ~5y, apparently. How is it a highly ignorant reaction?
  - dindresto 2mo ago
    The amount of monthly contributions has doubled in the last four years alone, from ~7k to ~14k commits per month. Why did I take six years as a reference? Because 2020 is the year nixpkgs really started to pick up traction, and the growth has been almost linear ever since. Your argument only holds if I were to say "it grew to its current amount of monthly contributions in 2020 and then stayed constant, without growing any further."

xyzzy_plugh 2mo ago

I agree with the concept but the name is terrible. "Core team" gives one the impression that this is the most important team to the project. It's not! It could be called the "governance facilitator" team or admins or something. Please name the next iteration something less spicy.

jonringer117 2mo ago
There was an architecture team which existed, I would assume the usage of "core" was to disambiguate. https://github.com/nixpkgs-architecture https://github.com/nixpkgs-architecture
nextaccountic 2mo ago
exactly what rust devs realized. they went from "core team" to "leadership council" in the next iteratiion

shevy-java 2mo ago

Packages were handled way before 2025 already, so it is strange that you insinuate they'd all only burn out within a year, and before that it was all cake and tea. NixOS is dying, everyone sees this right now. > but we've also functioned without one for ~20 years. Then this is also a PR problem because why need a team when the 20 years before were allegedly so perfect?

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
embedding-shape 2mo ago
> NixOS is dying, everyone sees this right now. Huh? Based on what? The packages I use keep getting updated, so clearly nixpkgs is alive. The OS I use keep getting updated, so clearly NixOS is alive to. Who exactly is dying, and what makes you believe that?
- Pay08 2mo ago
  Isn't nixpkgs still a pretty bad state? I know there used to be a lot of "abandoned" packages that went years without updating to the new versions provided by upstream, that a lot of packages were copying binaries around instead of building open source software from the source, etc.
  - toshinoriyagi 2mo ago
    Nixpkgs is one of, if not the largest, package managers by # of packages. I think naturally that will result in more abandoned packages than others. What is the % of abandoned packages relative to total I can't say. Nix tends to have updates almost as quickly as Arch does, I run a lot of bleeding edge software and have no issues, and the breadth of packages is immense. Nix just has a different style. With the AUR, you can adopt an abandoned package more easily. That has pros and cons (the AUR has recently suffered multiple supply-chain attacks due to packages being adopted and infected).
    - Pay08 2mo ago
      > Nixpkgs is one of, if not the largest, package managers by # of packages. I'm fairly certain that the graph you're thinking of is complete bullshit. It only had approximately a third of the package count listed for a particular Ubuntu version than said version had in actuality.
      - 2mo ago

dindresto 2mo ago

"we've also functioned without one for ~20 years" I'm sorry to say that this is a highly ignorant reaction to the situation. Nixpkgs was nowhere the size it is now in terms of contributors and packages, the growth in the past six years was enormous.

gcarvalho 2mo ago
I don't mean to be dismissive of the work done by the team which just resigned, and hope they get back on their feet. But also out of those 6y the core team did not exist for ~5y, apparently. How is it a highly ignorant reaction?
- dindresto 2mo ago
  The amount of monthly contributions has doubled in the last four years alone, from ~7k to ~14k commits per month. Why did I take six years as a reference? Because 2020 is the year nixpkgs really started to pick up traction, and the growth has been almost linear ever since. Your argument only holds if I were to say "it grew to its current amount of monthly contributions in 2020 and then stayed constant, without growing any further."