UK Safety Act Breaks Nix Builds

Steps to reproduce The fetchFromRepoOrCz function in pkgs/build-support/fetchrepoorcz/default.nix downloads sources from https://repo.or.cz/ Unfortunately, the site blocks connections from the UK due to the Online Safety act and redirects all requests to https://repo.or.cz/uk-blocked.html I noticed this while trying to build docutils from a UK-based build machine. The build error is nix log /nix/store/q9q3xki1m7miwk8p9dqb6wj1q8mg0m11-source.drv trying https://repo.or.cz/docutils.git/snapshot/docutils-0.21.2.tar.gz % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 100 242 100 242 0 0 331 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 331 100 2517 100 2517 0 0 3275 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0 unpacking source archive /build/docutils-0.21.2.tar.gz gzip: stdin: not in gzip format tar: Child returned status 1 tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now do not know how to unpack source archive /build/docutils-0.21.2.tar.gz In fact, if one runs curl -L0 https://repo.or.cz/docutils.git/snapshot/docutils-0.21.2.tar.gz the resulting file will contain the data from https://repo.or.cz/uk-blocked.html which is not a valid gzip archive.

A dark-themed technical screenshot explains how a Nix build of docutils fails on a UK-based build machine. The repository blocks UK connections under the Online Safety Act and returns an HTML error page instead of the requested gzip archive, causing gzip and tar to fail. The joke is the absurd mismatch between a normal source download and a misleading “not in gzip format” build error, making it useful as a reaction to bureaucratic or unexpected infrastructure failures.

• @pokupkabitka / 52316 2025-10-10