Sure. To start with, we see flakes as stable as they are today: https://determinate.systems/posts/experimental-does-not-mean.... The ecosystem has broadly adopted flakes as their preferred way to use Nix, and we're standing by them and are committing to not breaking their flakes in the future.
On Monday, we launched Determinate Nix to help make this promise more real: https://determinate.systems/posts/announcing-determinate-nix.... Note: Determinate Nix is not a fork, it is a downstream. Our plan, and intent, is to keep all our patches sent to the upstream project first.
> Note: Determinate Nix is not a fork, it is a downstream. Our plan, and intent, is to keep all our patches sent to the upstream project first.
And what happens if the Nix community doesn't pull those patches, and instead goes with a different solution? Will your downstream adapt to the upstream project, possibly breaking things for your customers?
Indeed, part of the motivation for our downstream distribution is to be able to ship some of our patches faster than upstream wants to. However, these patches are generally about usability improvements that are not incompatible.
If the upstream project evolves in a different direction, it will be on us to move with them too.
And what happens if the Nix community doesn't pull those patches, and instead goes with a different solution? Will your downstream adapt to the upstream project, possibly breaking things for your customers?