Eelco Dolstra

Co-founder, creator of Nix

Eelco started the Nix project as a PhD student at Utrecht University. He is a co-founder of Determinate Systems, alongside Graham Christensen, and a member of the Nix team.

Foundational academic work from Eelco

The Purely Functional Software Deployment Model (opens in a new tab)
Dissertation
The Purely Functional Software Deployment Model
Eelco's PhD thesis, completed at Utrecht University in 2006, which introduced Nix and the purely functional deployment model that the entire Determinate platform is built on today.

Podcasts featuring Eelco

Nix 2.31.0 with Nix team members (opens in a new tab)
Full Time Nix
Nix 2.31.0 with Nix team members
Episode 53September 19, 2025
Nix 2.29.0 with Nix team members (opens in a new tab)
Full Time Nix
Nix 2.29.0 with Nix team members
Episode 48June 7, 2025
Nix 2.26.2, 2.26.3, 2.27.0, 2.28.0, 2.28.1 with Nix team members (opens in a new tab)
Full Time Nix
Nix 2.26.2, 2.26.3, 2.27.0, 2.28.0, 2.28.1 with Nix team members
Episode 46April 16, 2025
Nix's magic cookbook (opens in a new tab)
LINUX Unplugged
Nix's magic cookbook
Episode 606March 16, 2025
Nix 2.24.11, 2.25.4, 2.24.12, 2.25.5, 2.26.0, 2.26.1 with Nix team members (opens in a new tab)
Full Time Nix
Nix 2.24.11, 2.25.4, 2.24.12, 2.25.5, 2.26.0, 2.26.1 with Nix team members
Episode 42January 31, 2025
SCaLEing Nix (opens in a new tab)
LINUX Unplugged
SCaLEing Nix
Episode 554March 17, 2024

Blog posts by Eelco

A new chapter for the Nix language, courtesy of WebAssembly
A new chapter for the Nix language, courtesy of WebAssembly
announcement
March 5, 202610 min read
Determinate Nix now supports Wasm functions in Nix expressions, bringing a range of new possibilities to the Nix ecosystem
Eelco Dolstra
Changelog: introducing `nix nario`
Changelog: introducing nix nario
changelog
October 31, 20255 min read
A fresh new take on distributing software with Nix
Eelco Dolstra
Announcing Determinate Nix
Announcing Determinate Nix
announcement
October 21, 20243 min read
Determinate Nix is a Nix distribution for teams
Eelco Dolstra
Parallel Nix evaluation
Parallel Nix evaluation
how to
June 27, 20247 min read
Speeding up Nix evaluation on multi-core CPUs
Eelco Dolstra
On community in Nix
On community in Nix
announcement
April 26, 20245 min read
On community in the Nix ecosystem.
Eelco Dolstra
Flake schemas: making flake outputs extensible
Flake schemas: making flake outputs extensible
announcement
August 31, 20235 min read
Flake schemas enable you to teach Nix about new flake output types.
Eelco Dolstra