As someone who closely observed all of this over the months, I can confirm that this was exactly the root cause of the whole issue. 4 out of 5 of these leaders eventually burnt out and quit.[^1]
The new governance structure, despite the rough start[^2], hopefully will solve that and create an actually caring leadership.
[^1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1dqn9os/4_out_of_5_n...
[^2]: https://shealevy.com/blog/2024/05/08/broken-promises-the-nix...
Rather, I see the problem as character. The chosen leader(s) need the internal, personal qualities necessary for getting volunteers to cooperate well. External structure won't save the project if leaders lack character, it will just slow the damage they can wrought.
Relatedly, I was uncharitable before in emphasizing the weakness of Nix's leader. I think we all lack the moral (apolitical) education necessary for just leadership.
> At a properly run company, if you are caught eating someone else's sandwich from the fridge, your boss will confront you and say "hey, Bob, don't eat Ted's sandwiches." That will be the end of it. In an organization with weak leadership, however, the entire company will receive an email from HR in the afternoon dictating a company-wide seminar on sandwich theft prevention, a #sandwich-theft chatroom will be created, posters depicting sandwich thieves in an encircled red X will appear on the walls, etc. The latter is more akin to what happened in the Nix case I outlined. There was no leadership in place to deal with an isolated sandwich theft, so it now needed to discuss policies with the goal of ending sandwich theft forever and punishing all sandwich thieves globally.
As an outsider, it looks like Nix had a weak leader who refused to mediate differences between people. He didn’t do what was right and just. His problem, and his irresponsibility, became everyone else’s problem and responsibility. A power vacuum but also a moral vacuum.