Frequently Asked Questions

What is AFNix exactly?

AFNix (Association Française Nix) is a French loi 1901 non-profit organization with the aim of promoting research and development around the functional package management paradigm. In concrete terms, we currently fulfill this aim through infrastructure support (software and legal) for Nix-related projects, as well as event organization around either Nix generally or the projects we assist.

For more information, please refer to the bylaws of our association.

How does AFNix relate to the NixOS Foundation?

AFNix has no direct relation to the NixOS Foundation, though we share very similar goals. We are an independent and smaller structure, allowing us to move faster and work with projects that the NixOS Foundation is not able or willing to assist. Our values are also different: for example, AFNix focuses on community above corporate interests, aims to build resilient leadership and long-term sustainability, and attempts to avoid reliance on Big Tech software companies as much as possible.

How does AFNix relate to nix-community?

nix-community is a grouping of Nix-related projects hosted and funded under one umbrella, sharing infrastructure and loosely sharing leadership and governance. AFNix provides similar services but aims larger, with a clearer and more legally sound structure. In doing so, we can provide hosting for larger projects that nix-community cannot currently accomodate.

We think it is easier to scale down than scale up, and we do aim to provide competing services to nix-community for smaller projects. This is under two assumptions: the first is that this is not a saturated market, and there is a need for more hosting capabilities for Nix-related projects. The second is that we can provide meaningful differences in services to what nix-community currently offers: for example, with projects that want to avoid depending on the GitHub ecosystem, or that have specific infrastructure needs that the nix-community infrastructure team cannot reasonably accomodate.

Which projects fit under AFNix?

We are open to work with any project related to the Nix ecosystem that shares our values and interests for long-term sustainability. We do not currently have strict guidelines or rules, but will consider any application on a case by case basis. You can look at our existing project portfolio to get an idea of what we currently support.