this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025

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Nix / NixOS

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why is it called nix? unix without u (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 weeks ago by enemenemu@lemm.ee to c/nix@programming.dev

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[–] InnerScientist@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

"Nix" doesn't resemble "nichts", it's slang for the same thing in German so it has the same meaning.

I don't know which language is the source but if someone can access the nix paper to confirm that'd be great.

[–] blackschild@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Footnote in the paper on page 3: The name Nix is derived from the Dutch word niks, meaning nothing; build actions do not see anything that has not been explicitly declared as an input.