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
I’m not familiar with NixOS
However, short reminder that the internet was largely funded by the US military. It’s not uncommon that the US military brings significant developments for the internet. This is nothing new. The latest outcry is solely because the US is sliding into fascism, not because of the involvement with the US military.
I don’t think it’s solely for that reason. There are privacy concerns and concerns the os could be used for the MIC.
Can’t the MIC just use any existing Linux distro?
I am trying to understand what the injury here is?
Is it mostly about reputational damage from association? Kinda like why are we eating the same food as MIC and at the same table? Is there an injury here beyond this that I am not seeing?
Couldn’t the MIC shut down every FOSS project by declaring they love them and use them? I hope no FOSS dev is so simpleminded as to knee jerk like that.
We have to accept living in a dirty world with dirty people, to some extent. People we don’t like will use our favorite projects sometimes. That’s par for the course.
Where I would draw the line is implemeting some change into the distro that is either only or primarily useful for nefarious purposes, and is largely useless to 99% of normal/ethical use cases. Now THAT would be a real problem, and a real red line, imo.