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3rd most active contributor to #nixos drops from the project due to the lack of leadership from the Foundation supposedly backing the project.

Everything is fine, I'm sure the arms dealers will compensate the lost contributions. /s

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/306702


maintainers: remove marsam by marsam · Pull Request #306702 · NixOS/nixpkgs

I think that's it. I've been using NixOS for around 10 years, and contributing for +8 years, but it's time for me to say goodbye. I'm deeply disappointed of the Foundation "neutral" stance in the A...
GitHub
#nixos
in reply to Pierre Bourdon

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •

“Now ‘everything is political’.”

… Says the smoked gammon working for the defense contractor at the heart of the controversy.

Oh, quelle surprise!

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/major-nixpkgs-contributor-leaving/44053/13

#nixOS #anduril


Major Nixpkgs contributor leaving

I really wish Nix was a democratically governed free and open-source software project that operated based on a shared set of common values and goals. It existed for many years as a loose confederation of enthusiasts. Now “everything is political”.
NixOS Discourse
#nixos #anduril

reshared this

in reply to Aral Balkan

Markus :prami:
Markus :prami:
• •

@aral this is so depressing.

I had a lot of fun and great results in building my systems using #nixos, I even took this as an evaluation experiment for my professional work which would have big impact on my work for years to come.

That it is one of the few "community distros" was on top of my pro list.

Now this.

(Ok, it's not only now but just got clearer and clearer for me over the last months the deeper I got into it.)

#nixos @Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan

Miroslav Kravec
Miroslav Kravec
• •

@aral I have no clue what political afair is happening in NixOS community.

Why can't technology be only about technology without politics?

Especially in #FOSS, which is a public good - everyone benefits from it.

#foss @Aral Balkan
in reply to Miroslav Kravec

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
Because technology is the physical manifestation of ideology. You cannot understand a specific technology without understanding the ideology it is designed to realise and amplify. If certain technologies appear apolitical, it’s because they amplify the dominant ideology of the system you reside within. So all technology is political. But the only technologies deemed political by those who benefit from the status quo are the ones that threaten it.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

Miroslav Kravec
Miroslav Kravec
• •

@aral I don't quite get it for this case.

Technology is a tool. In this case - open-source software - non rivalrous public good.

Some technology can be an inherently evil or political tool, i.e. weapons.

But, an open-source operating system (Linux distribution) doesn't have an implicit purpose.

NixOS can be used by all people for everyone's benefit. I don't see how this can be coupled to politics.

It's pretty much a neutral tool (public good), and it's up to user how it's used.

@Aral Balkan
in reply to Miroslav Kravec

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@kravemir Why is it designed the way that it is? What are the assumptions underlying those design decisions? Why is it, for example, so enticing for a defence contractor? How might it have been designed, licensed, governed, etc., so it would not have been? How is it funded? Why does it attract that funding? Etc.
@Miroslav Kravec
in reply to Aral Balkan

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@kravemir Take our work with the Small Web, for example: why did I spend the last six years recreating parts of the wheel instead of just using a web server like nginx, a framework like React, a database like MongoDB and/or a serverless platform, etc. All those seem like very neutral, dare I say it normal choices. But they’re actually designed with the assumption that you want to build centralised systems that scale…
@Miroslav Kravec
in reply to Aral Balkan

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@kravemir …whereas what I’m trying to encourage is the emergence of a peer-to-peer web, the goals and success criteria of which are diametrically opposed to those of venture-capital-funded mainstream Silicon Valley corporations. The same ones that create those open source tools and technologies to help perpetuate their system. So at every level of the stack, decisions are baked into our everyday things that are made based on ideology; business models, etc.
@Miroslav Kravec
in reply to Aral Balkan

Miroslav Kravec
Miroslav Kravec
• •

@aral thanks.

The example you provided - how centralization ideology influences and shapes technology - helped me understand the relationship. I get the theoretical part now.

However. I fail to see how NixOS has political relationship to wrong ideologies.

I am simple Linux user. And, as such NixOS's declarative approach to OS setup saved me lots of time.

Previously, with imperative approach of system setup, I needed to redo many things from scratch in tedious way.

@Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan

Rob Isaac
Rob Isaac
• •
@aral this needs to be printed on a poster, and people who write software need to look at it each morning before they start work.
@Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan

Matthew Booth
Matthew Booth
• •

@aral @kravemir How would you apply that to this situation?

The maintainer did not express any frustration with the technology. He expressed frustration with the actions of the project's leadership. NixOS isn't designed to amplify the politics of arms dealers. It has no ideology. A group of people are now using for that, though, so refusing to contribute to their toolchain is a reasonable political response.

But I don't understand what politics NixOS would be a manifestation of.

@Aral Balkan @Miroslav Kravec
in reply to Miroslav Kravec

Pierre Bourdon
Pierre Bourdon
• •

@kravemir @aral because technology needs money and volunteers, and both volunteers and money sources have political opinions.

That's like, FOSS community management 101 prerequisites. Not rocket science.

@Aral Balkan @Miroslav Kravec
in reply to Pierre Bourdon

Chris McDonough ✅
Chris McDonough ✅
• •
@kravemir @aral maybe you could at least avoid calling people pigs due to where they work
@Aral Balkan @Miroslav Kravec
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Chris McDonough ✅

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@chrism @kravemir Oh, goodness forbid, no, it’s not because of where they work. It’s because they’re gammon; a privileged white guy with reactionary opinions who bares a striking resemblance in hue and texture to the aforementioned beloved culinary delight.
@Chris McDonough ✅ @Miroslav Kravec
in reply to Aral Balkan

javi
javi
• •
I think people working for companies like Anduril or Palantir deserve to be shunned and pushed out of any communal space on tech. These are people who willingly choose to work making the killing of other people more efficient and easy. I'm ok, happy even, with them not feeling welcome in FOSS.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Sven Slootweg
Sven Slootweg
• •

@aral It's also conveniently ignoring how there have been problems with marginalized folks getting harassed for *at least* 5 years already by this point, and the only new thing is that there's pushback against the shitty people, but of course that prior harassment would have never affected him because he's a privileged dude, and so everything used to be rosy *for him*...

As usual, the "suddenly everything is political" accusation is really just disguising a complaint about people setting boundaries that he doesn't like

@Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan

cohomology is FUN!
cohomology is FUN!
• •

everything is political.

Always was.

Always will be.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

Esther Payne 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Esther Payne 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
• •

@aral I'll be honest I ticked my bingo card with that comment.

I don't know why its so hard for folks to get that we encode our politics in our tech.

Tech is political.

@Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan

Orca🌻 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️
Orca🌻 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️
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"everything is political"
What the heck. tech, foss, Linux have always been political, and will always be. ​:neocat_confused:​
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