After another year of building and daily-driving finix, I remain interested in what it means for nix to support multiple operating system designs and philosophies. In this talk, I will share some lessons from my experiences with finix, and beyond, and make the case that healthy ecosystems benefit from diversity.

nixos remains an extraordinary achievement. But if the ideas behind nix are truly powerful, they should be able to adapt to different technical philosophies and communities, rather than requiring everyone to converge on a single vision. By creating space for alternative approaches, we can bring those ideas to people who might otherwise never adopt them at all.