diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/builder.sh b/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/builder.sh
index 43462834b19e..0b66a129c3d8 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/builder.sh
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/builder.sh
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ echo "Cloning Fossil $url [$rev] into $out"
 export HOME=$(pwd)
 
 # We must explicitly set the admin user for the clone to something reasonable.
-fossil clone -A nobody "$url" fossil-clone.fossil
+fossil clone -A $(whoami) "$url" fossil-clone.fossil
 
 mkdir fossil-clone
 WORKDIR=$(pwd)
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/nix-prefetch-fossil b/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/nix-prefetch-fossil
index 0e1ce4d9c060..32762f86425f 100755
--- a/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/nix-prefetch-fossil
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/fetchfossil/nix-prefetch-fossil
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ export HOME="$tmpPath"
 echo "Fetching Fossil repository $url at revision $rev..." >&2
 
 # Clone the repository
-fossil clone -A nobody "$url" "$tmpPath/fossil-clone.fossil" >&2
+fossil clone -A $(whoami) "$url" "$tmpPath/fossil-clone.fossil" >&2
 
 # Create directory for checkout
 checkoutDir="$tmpPath/checkout"