Short Summary of the Community Drama of the Linux Distribution “NixOS”, so that you can get the big picture and form your own opinion with the provided sources.
Clarification of the “Steering Comittee” as Project Leadership
Moderation Team resigns in Protest
- Resignation Post, with examples of interference: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/a-statement-from-members-of-the-moderation-team/69828
- Conflict due different interests:
- the Moderation Team desires being independent. otherwise, they can’t moderate the behavior of people in positions of power.
- the Moderation Team is currently accountable to the Steering Comittee: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/a-statement-from-members-of-the-moderation-team/69828/6
Technical Leadership works for Military Company, causing Fear of Alignment with Facism.
- Steering Committee works for Military Company https://discourse.nixos.org/t/sc-member-tomberek-works-for-anduril/68971
- People in the community feel uncomfortable with that, since the US and its military are heading towards facsism: https://mstdn.games/@KFears/115275676459535171
- The Steering Committee made a public Post about that, explaining the Situation: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/statement-on-a-steering-committee-member-joining-anduril/69007
And now DHH is getting involved in this shitshow. For those not chronically online enough, DHH is one of the developers of Rails, has a rap sheet of drama, and has his own dirty laundry full of racism, transphobia, and has managed to drive his own company into the shitter.
So really a bunch of winners are coming out of the woodwork for this one.
As a happy Debian user i’m not hearing any of it.
Can we avoid calling taking action against valid moral objections “drama”? It only serves to make the people doing the right thing sound like they’re being immature, even when they’re obviously right.
Objecting to a fascist government’s influence over very powerful build infrastructure used around the world is the right thing to do.
Why don’t we destigmatise drama?
Imagine if we referred to the recent UN walkout as “Drama at the UN.” It trivializes the topic.
valid moral objections
That’s the thing, whether or not they’re valid depends on the person you’re asking.
I personally think this is a load of bullshit and just another instance of slacktivists trying to guilt people into doing their bidding.
Hopefully the leader in question doesn’t change a single thing due to this pressure. He would be a helpless child if he didn’t have the strength to resist this kind of peer pressure from online drama.
That’s the thing, whether or not they’re valid depends on the person you’re asking.
No it fucking doesn’t! There are people who think that, but they’re wrong.
Moral relativism is bullshit.
I mean yeah, if you ask a fascist how they feel about fascism, they probably don’t think it’s a big deal.
First things first: a simple search for “anduril nixos” shows that NixOS and Anduril Industries (defense technology) have been entangled for years.
So, pretty sure there’s plenty history & dissent here, but I never dived into it.
In detail this looks like just another community drama, but when you zoom out a different picture emerges: commercial interest, a will to silence dissent (and I will give them the benefit of the doubt that it isn’t for ideological reasons but simple worry about money). The Enshittification of a distro. With a military/fascist twist.
Here’s an interesting detail:
Unfortunately, the Constitution does not provide a meaningful recourse to SC overreach
So they have a flawed “constitution” which - judging by its name - should supersede the steering committee. It’s not like it’s really a constitution though, with all that would entail. It sounds more like, hm, “communitywashing” to me. Still, I wonder if they’re willing to take that colorful terminology one step further and make an amendment to said constitution.
So yeah, political bias and unilateral decisions.
I’ve always been leery of NixOS, and I mean since they started pushing it over a decade ago, always claiming it’s revolutionary better than $STANDARD_LINUX_DISTRO.
First things first: a simple search for “anduril nixos” shows that NixOS and Anduril Industries (defense technology) have been entangled for years.
It’s more like Anduril using Nix{OS} and trying to insert themselves into the community. There’s been a lot of opposition to that, including an open letter and maintainers quitting; this was a big part of the reason for Steering Committee formation in the first place. The SC has since voted on some based things, like banning Anduril from job posting on community forums and sponsoring conferences. I was hoping they would just ban any mention of Anduril anywhere, but that’s going too far for them unforutenately; and banning technical contributions wouldn’t make sense.
An SC member joining Anduril (after being elected, not before, mind you) is really bad, but I bet they will lose their seat in a month’s time when there’s a new election. The community is mostly antifascist and thus anti-MIC. It’s like one of the most leftist technical communities I’ve seen, perhaps more so than Rust.
It’s like one of the most leftist technical communities I’ve seen, perhaps more so than Rust
Rust is on the left? That’s (cough) GNUs to me ;).
Rust is the gayest programming language
It gave me crabs.
Steering Committee works for Military Company
It’s only one SC member, and they switched jobs after being elected last year. I think the Nix community is generally very much against US MIC, and unlikely to actually elect someone working for them. Although it was well-known that tomberek (and johnringer) are US-military-aligned.
After reading a bit more into the modteam situation, I have to say I’m on the mod team’s side here.
Yes. This is two distinct things lumped together in one post. I think the arms industry thing isn’t too bad, it’s only since August and the term ends soon, so people have an opportunity to vote for the right thing in a timely manner.
I think the arms industry thing is bad actually. Working for the US military in any way is bad already (and has been since the founding), but Anduril is even worse since it has almost explicitly fascist & pro-Trump leadership. I think people associating themselves with Anduril need to be kept far away from any position of power within the community. So yeah tomberek wasn’t on my ballot last year and won’t be the next.
It’s kind of a conversation classic amongst programmers. Would you work for the arms industry or a direct supplier? I wouldn’t unless someone finds a way to force me to. And the vast majority of people voice similar opinions. There’s a million valid concerns why it’s not ethical. I do however know one or two people who ended up working somewhere in that field. Or who bought stocks of defense companies and ultimately make profit with war.
Unfortunately “direct suppliers of the arms industry” covers like half of the IT industry. I’ve also avoided such companies but it’s surprisingly common.
Yeah, I don’t think there is an exact line to draw, maybe sometimes we need to be pragmatic. There’s a lot of dual use stuff and I mean they drive cars or use photocopiers, computer systems and eat as well, I guess just try to do your best?! But there’s some gradual decent from programming the buttons on the general’s microwave to delivering a missile guidance system to them. I’d say somewhere in between you’d switch to the “dark side”.
