Jon Ringer, a significant contributor to the NixOS project, has been banned

There's a couple of contradictions I've found that might have caused the suspension:

Lack of Disclosure

this will come into play again later on #4

Should organizations relating to the defense sector being able to sponsor NixOS?

the inadequate disclosure/lack of transparency of how sponsorships are being handled (which feels similar to the Rust Foundation's previous blunders)

Incredibly Odd Behavior

Jonathan Ringer's Reddit post

incorrectly stated their status as a ban rather than a suspension.
They should clearly know that they're suspended rather than banned especially since they themselves linked to the GitHub moderation commit which states as such.

Jonathan Ringer's Recent Comment History

        > I'm not innocent, but it's hard to stay impartial when you're so invested in a project and community.

What's the intent of this statement?

        > I don't want to play their "victim/oppressor" narrative, so I'm evil incarnate.  
    > It's also to "tone police" the rest of the community from speaking against their actions.  
    > Any rational person would want to avoid dealing with that hornets nest.  
    > Now I'm irrational and banned! :(

continued display of erratic irrational behavior.

Jonathan Ringer works for Anduril

which is a direct contradiction to Lack of Disclosure - #1.
Also I want to say great eye to Lojcs@lemm.ee for spotting that!, as I didn't notice that critical information the first time I read through the discussions

For clarification: Anduril is an American military company

there's a good reason why people don't want Nix to be sponsored by the military

From what I've found so far:

jonringer was suspended for 6 weeks (until 2024-06-10) for repeatedly derailing sensitive discussions and willfully furthering the division in the community

^this suspension seems to make sense as Jonathan Ringer is:

Clearly in violation of Conflict of Interest due to their involvement with Lack of Disclosure - #1.
Still displaying on Reddit "willfully furthering the division in the community" as mentioned in the moderation commit action

They've caused problems in the past and it seems clear they haven't learned what really caused the suspension in the first place.
Their behavior is unsustainable so I can see the reason for the suspension, although at this point a permaban might be warranted due to the reasons stated above

Edit:
There's more bewildering comments from Jonathan it seems:

        > This seems to be aligned with a similar attempt of mine #114 from 2021.

    > The goal has been moved from "these are acceptable behaviors in this CoC" (114) to "these are how these behaviors should be enforced fairly". Which sounds good to me.

    > I'll do a more thorough review, but feel confident that I would like to nominate myself as a shepherd.

[RFC 175] Memorandum on Equitable Moderation #175

Wow, that's a great summary, thanks for putting all this effort.
Is he having a mental health breakdown? He's using pretty odd phrasing to basically say he feels unjustly targeted.
- Wow, that’s a great summary, thanks for putting all this effort.
  no worries👍
  I just happened to see this post and fell down the rabbit hole
  Is he having a mental health breakdown? He’s using pretty odd phrasing to basically say he feels unjustly targeted.
  I have no idea, can't really say anything about their mental state as I don't really know them
  What I do know is that I personally wouldn't want them anywhere near my projects

I read the thread and now I'm more confused. Can someone explain what this is about to an outsider?

Edit: every thread I see is talking about talking about a discussion. What's the discussion??

Edit 2: Ok so far I got that this Jon guy doesn't like positive discrimination and 'politics' and also worked at the defense company that sponsored nix but doesn't support that (?) (which is also related to the diversity problem (?)) and there are also two open letters that are related (?) and people have been mean to him in threads. Anyone who isn't involved in nix community thinks good of him because he's very active and talks agreeably

I wish they'd all stop talking so superficially and just get to the point

I'm in the same boat - only started getting into Nix a couple months ago, with no proper engagement in the community yet
I liked the breakdown posted by another user above. As far as I understood (I hope others will correct me) is that:
One person, who happens to be a well-respected long-time contributor, was dismissive of others' concerns about accepting funding from a MIC company.
They got suspended for 6 weeks due to being affiliated with said company (?) and not having disclosed it properly.
They went on Reddit to write about the situation, grossly misrepresenting it in their favor, turning their contributor cred into vocal support in reddit comments.
All of that is happening while the community as a whole is struggling with scalability and transparency of organization, as well reaching an ethical consensus on the funding question.

The way things are going, the nixos community's going to be forked. If all you do is ask questions about nix itself on the nixos discourse, then things are fine. However if you step out line by suggesting change or voice your opinion against change that mods and foundation want, you're going to get flamed into oblivion.
\ Jon is just one of the many examples.

Anti Commercial-AI license

Anti Commercial-AI license
Is this nonsense spreading? Stop trying to bring back forum signatures mixed with 'I do not give Facebook permission, repost this before midnight.' Legally, practically, and morally, it is incorrect.
If you could reserve those rights, they would be so by default.
- OpenAI et al. will just put "No copyright infringment intended" on everything and it will all be fine.
The NixOS community is forked on a regular basis. So is the nixpkgs community. The focus here is on control of CppNix, e.g. blocking the autotools-to-meson PR.
It's pretty easy to have opinions that the mods and Foundation don't like. Be polite and you'll be fine. Also, don't be like Jon, who thinks "polite" means smiling through gritted teeth and being passive-aggressive.
- Which nixos community forks are there? I'm not aware of any?
  It’s pretty easy to have opinions that the mods and Foundation don’t like. Be polite and you’ll be fine.
  It's easy as long as you don't voice them. If they disagree, then it's the end of the discussion. They hold the power so whatever they don't like won't happen or your discussion will be moved to a new topic and unlisted. That does seem to happen fairly regularly.
  Anti Commercial-AI license
https://aux.computer/
- I'm glad there's an attempt at a fork, but that name... hopefully it gets put up to a vote.
  Anti Commercial-AI license

Edit: turns out this story goes way beyond Jon, all of Nix is in flux right now. My personal experience is kind of irrelevant.

Edit edit: just read this: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-giving-power-to-the-community/44552

Original Post:

As a first-hand account; Jon has been the nicest of all the maintainers I've had interactions with ( ~7), probably followed by Ryan Mulligan. The only reason I remember Jon's name (I usually just recognize maintainers by their profile pictures) is because a couple years ago, as part of this thread I was reading this github issue with a really rude/attacking user. I remember reading Jon's response and thinking "This is one of the most patient FOSS devs on all of Github".

However, take ^that as-is, because I am not up to date on anything recent. I just wanted to provide the small bit of insight I do have.

Here's some of my interactions for those who like to judge for themselves:

them being nice and all is nice however they are causing real problems and stirring drama for troubles that they caused
I don't really understand the reasoning behind vouching for them when they are currently creating problems and haven't really tried to solve anything besides creating enough drama to (what it seems to me) try and force themselves back into direct repository access
I kinda of see their past and current actions as ways to maintain a position of power which is quite problematic as they still haven't addressed a key concern being their conflict of interest from working with Anduril
being nice is good for maintaining good social cohesion and whatnot but stirring shit and creating real problems kinda negates it
I'm personally not convinced
- Absolutely, I didn't mean my comment as excuse or justification. I personally don't want any sponsored people on the board. Defense contractor or otherwise.
  I'm still trying to disentangle the "stirring up drama" part though.
This reeks of astroturf. That's a lot of effort to put into saying absolutely nothing of substance. I cannot assume in good faith impartiality.
- I don't know what AstroTurf means. Jon might be in the wrong, and I'll edit my comment to put bad stuff at the top once I'm caught up. I'm just giving the info I have. If you have some let me know.
  If AstroTurf means a bot, check my history here and on Github (jeff-hykin)