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NixOS Foundation board: Giving power to the community (discourse.nixos.org)

submitted 6 months ago by bear@slrpnk.net to c/nix@programming.dev

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Eelco has agreed to step down from the NixOS foundation board. Over the next two weeks, a constitutional assembly will be appointed to draft a constitution to democratically govern Nix/NixOS.

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[–] refalo@programming.dev 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I do not like distributed, community-driven leadership. The more leadership is shared, the more arguments there are, and the less gets done.

I would rather have a strong dictatorship focused on technical merit, to be deposed in the future for another dictator, again, based on technical merit.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You are free to set up such a project, instituting yourself as the initial dictator, accepting merit challenges of some specified form, and see whether someone bothers to go for your jugular. Call it KingOfTheHillOS.

...in all seriousness the general issue with merit-based approaches is that you need a way to decide on what "merit" means, and to have an actual project and not a one person show you need a community that shares that definition, and you can't dispose of the dictator if they have the power to dictate what merit is, so you are left with either a) an unchanging definition which is just as bad as unpatchable software or b) some form of stakeholder democracy.

[–] bear@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I would rather have a strong dictatorship focused on technical merit, to be deposed in the future for another dictator, again, based on technical merit.

Normally when I see people say something like this, what they actually mean is "based on technical merit (and also has the right opinions that agree with mine)". The concern is that democracy will produce outcomes they find disagreeable.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Personally I'd rather have a choice of who to follow based on whose opinions align better with my own, instead of everyone being forced to go with the majority... in other words I respect people's freedom to have opinions I do not like, which I think this type of "community power" is in some ways the opposite of that.

[–] bear@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Personally I'd rather have a choice of who to follow based on whose opinions align better with my own, instead of everyone being forced to go with the majority...

NixOS is FOSS. People can freely fork it. Your choice is not being taken away.

in other words I respect people's freedom to have opinions I do not like, which I think this type of "community power" is in some ways the opposite of that.

I'm not sure how voting makes it so we can't respect each other's opinions.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I’m not sure how voting makes it so we can’t respect each other’s opinions.

Typically this is done by adopting a CoC and then adding things to it that you don't like. But I have seen more hostile methods too.

[–] bear@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

... Yes. You will have to behave like a civilized adult. If your opinion is that you shouldn't have to, then you are correct that I do not respect that opinion.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago

I think the whole problem here is that someone's definition of "civilized adult" is different from others. My definition doesn't try to suppress people's opinions, even if I don't like them.