Summary of Nix drama so far. Sep27 - ?? 2025
This is meant to inform people who may not be able to keep up with the massive churn of events. Instead, I would like to consolidate all of these pieces into a consumable document so that people can follow along with the events to come. For people outside of the Nix community, please be aware that labels such as "alt-right", "fascist", or "nazi" are used throughout. These epithets are weaponized against many on the receiving end, but don’t accurately describe actual political leanings or necessarily the feelings of people who oppose such politicization of the Nix community.
Brief setup
Last year, the foundation board stepped down as a governance entity and instead a process to create a new governance body was put forth, the Steering Committee. This Committee would be entrusted with settling governance decisions for the community, instead of having long exhausting public discussions like in 2023 and 2024 around a variety of events. An election was held, and the following members were elected (2 most voted individuals got a 2 year term):
- Robert Hensing. (2 year term) Member of Nix team (the cli tool). 8+ year contributor
- John Ericson. (2 year term) Member of Nix team. 10+ year contributor
- Thomas Bereknyei. Member of Nix team. 12+ year contributor
- Gabriella Gonzalez. Prolific in both Haskell and Nix spaces
- Jan Tojnar. Nixpkgs contributor of 7+ years
- Winter. Nixpkgs contributor of 3+ years
- Franz Pletz. Nixpkgs contributor of 10+ years. Left SC due to health reasons on Sep4
With Franz Pletz removed. This left a 6 member SC which now was prone to 50/50 deadlocks, which will be relevant immediately.
Timeline of events
- Sept 6
- Announce that tomberek now works at anduril
- Some propose that he resigns from SC to avoid Anduril being involved with Nix
- Announce that tomberek now works at anduril
- Pre Sept 27
- SC Votes to replace K900 (a nix mod) with numinit (a nixpkgs contributor)
- The vote to remove K900, allow K900 to remain on nixpkgs core team, and install numinit on moderation team all pass
- (conjecture) there was likely a series of questionable moderation actions done by K900, however, there's been no explicit construction of proof. These were described as "vibes"
- In SC private chat, John ericson denotes "phrase the wording of the removal carefully" and attempts to "collect evidence"
- (not sure day) Winter disseminates partial logs of John's conversations about K900's removal
- SC Votes to replace K900 (a nix mod) with numinit (a nixpkgs contributor)
- Sept 27
- 5/7 Moderators resign in protest of SC interferring with their individuals
- Aleksanaa (another Nix moderator) resigns for personal obligations
- Lassalus, remains in moderator seat to help transition but would otherwise resign
- 5/7 Moderators resign in protest of SC interferring with their individuals
- Sept 29
- Excellent post by sielicki on why these exclusionary tactics are anti-thetical to FOSS and needs to stop
- Sept 30
- Gabriella put forward vote of no confidence in SC, in attempt to dissolve it
- Whistleblower thread goes up stating that John Ericson is acting in bad faith and and should resign immediately
- Escalates to a call for complete re-election
- Oct 1
- Robert Hensing resigns from his Nix Team position
- Resolves to stay on SC
- John Ericson also states that he stays resolved
- Robert Hensing resigns from his Nix Team position
- (too lazy to look up day) Gabriella puts forward another vote of no confidence in SC, in attempt to dissolve it
- Oct 2
- Oct 6
- The dire state of the SC thread.
- "I have lost all faith in John, Robert and Tom being reasonable enough to put the interests of the community above their own"
- Raito calls for DMs to start a new community outside of Nixpkgs
- "If you’re ready to collaborate and build something better, feel free to DM me"
- The dire state of the SC thread.
My interpretation of these events.
My knowledge on the specifics of any one of these events is pretty limited, as I have been banned since July 2024. However, having been on the receiving end of many of the same individuals, it's interesting to see the same behavior come up again, but aimed at different members.
No one has given me privileged information, this is only extrapolating from what is publicly available
From scanning through the threads, it seems that the SC wanted to hold some of K900's moderation actions accountable. In particular, how the decision making existed in the current CoC and Core values which the Nix community has. Instead of being cooperative, I think it's likely that K900 was actively hostile to the notion of their integrity being challenged. Robert mentioned, "I believe all moderators had good intentions, but some resisted any effort towards accountability. This had to change". In general, I agree with the perception. However, in response to SC attempting to enact moderation accountability, I believe that K900 and co-orbiters solidified an united front against such intervention and this resulted in the resignation letter by the moderators.
While this was escalating (or before), Winter also released some dialogue with John Ericson likely to K900 and others as the dialogue intensified as an act of solidarity. However, I think this information was then used by the group to escalate their actions to then create the call for John Ericson's resignation.
Strategically, this makes sense becuase the SC is currently in a deadlock, if one of the 3 members of opposition resigins (Tom, John, Robert), then there will be a majority in favor of the resigned moderation team. And things in the community will go back to their previous state. Having it where either the SC dissolves, one of them steps down, or they can pass a vote-of-no-confidence will all be in their best interest.
This is why things escalated so much, the current situation is in a deadlock and has stagnated. Instead, it seems the focus has been turned to the upcoming SC election to see 5 members be rotated on. John Ericson and Robert Hensing will remain for their second year. This fixation on the election however, has now made individuals focused on SC candidates instead, and now you can see the drama move over to the steering committee election repo.
Final thoughts
I've given a lot of thought as to what would motivate such an intense reaction to many of these events and I only come up with one conclusion: they view any involvement of an entity related to the Military-Industrial-Complex as unacceptable and an existential crisis. With Anduril, this was mostly relegated to just one entity, but with the NixCon 2025 sponsorships, even Antithesis was denied a sponsorship because it had Palantir as a successful client on their landing page. It also makes much of the rhetoric displayed make more sense.
The unfortunate part in all of this is the disconnect of "the Nazis want to take over" and "these businesses are just that, businesses". Going on witch hunts to remove individuals (such as myself, tomberek, and ericson) is not a productive way to ensure a cohesive community. This type of cancel culture behavior is unacceptable. You can hate Anduril and what it does, but not everyone shares the same world view, and you're admonishing others for being different.
Nix is a great technology. We really should be striving to have as many people be welcome and thrive in it. This means accepting people of different backgrounds and their world view. Take a second to step back, and see what you're doing to other human beings and ask yourself if that's appropriate behavior.