this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2024
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open letter to the NixOS foundation (save-nix-together.org)
submitted 7 months ago by lemmyreader@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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https://chaos.social/@ktemkin/112310528803928457

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[–] A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com 49 points 7 months ago (11 children)

I wonder if this is social engineering along the same vein as the xz takeover? I see a few structural similarities:

  • A lot of pressure being put on a maintainer for reasons that are not particularly obvious what they are all about to an external observer.
  • Anonymous source other than calling themselves KA - so that it can't be linked to them as a past contributor / it is not possible to find people who actually know the instigator. In the xz case, a whole lot of anonymous personas showed up to put the maintainer under pressure.
  • A major plank of this seems to be attacking a maintainer for "Avoiding giving away authority". In the xz attack, the attacker sought to get more access and created astroturfed pressure to achieve that ends.
  • It is on a specially allocated domain with full WHOIS privacy, hosted on GitHub on an org with hidden project owners.

My advice to those attacked here is to keep up the good work on Nix and NixOS, and don't give in to what could be social engineering trying to manipulate you into acting against the community's interests.

[–] corbin@awful.systems 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The original signers include members of the infrastructure and moderation teams. You can find about half of them on Mastodon. They're all well-established community members who hold real responsibility and roles within the NixOS Foundation ecosystem.

Also note that Eelco isn't "a maintainer" but the original author and designer, as well as a de facto founder of Determinate Systems. He's a BDFL. Look at this like the other dethronings of former BDFLs in the D, Python, Perl, Rails, or Scala communities; there's going to be lots of drama and possibly a fork.

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