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 get that big projects are not the same, but in my experience there’s always a hierarchy, not a collection of independent bodies (except for fan-made communities that are clearly “unofficial”, those are independent, sure). It’s not unheard of for maintainers at the top of the hierarchy to influence other parts of the organization, like moderation. In fact most open source projects are like that, led by a group of “benevolent dictators”.
I think you’re right with that. And it’s not like the Free Software community has agreed on some form of project structure. There are projects doing all kinds of stuff from democracy to meritocracy, elitism to dictatorship. Or some of the common ways commercial businesses are laid out. Though I think once someone appoints several bodies, they need to make sure they’re both all equipped to do their task, but don’t mess with each other at the same time. Everything else is stupid. But I don’t know what’s right in this specific instance.