NixOS Foundation Board Meeting Minutes - Oct 21, 2022 [In Person]

In person board meeting post NixCon

Agenda

Meeting Notes

  • US non-profit
    • Would be able to exist in tandem/addition to the Dutch Entity (edited for grammar - previous pre edit wording is here → “Can run it simultaneously as the Dutch entity”)
    • Review past conversations on the subject to review implications and next steps
    • Verify other questions/concerns/need to knows
  • Treasurer -
    • Fill out list of scope and responsibilities so we can make sure nothing is dropped
    • Hire an accountant - by end of November
      • Check with local bookkeepers
      • Check with KPMG
    • Treasurer
  • OceanSprint sponsorship
    • Want EUR 2500 for food and venue
    • Decision: We grant a EUR 2500 budget to OceanSprint November 2022. Domen abstained from this vote.
  • Nix Knowledge Base and Templates -
    • NixCon Handbook
    • OceanSprint/Hackathon Templates
  • Following up on board questions on discourse
    • @zupo posted a summary on his blog (thanks!)
    • Board will respond to questions (took some time as everyone is making their way back home)
  • Top nix contributions and projects of the month - board recognized monthly
    • Post asking the community for meaningful/helpful work that’s been done this month
    • Then we post that out with a shout out to 2 of them as well
  • NixCon
    • Survey results - We will do a deeper review but some initial things that came up
      • Wifi / Sound improvements desired
      • Categorization of talks into tracks
      • food
    • Retrospectives
      • Create NixCon handbook
      • More cost-effective area (accommodations/food/etc.)
      • Better ventilated venue
    • Next year
      • Potentially a more cost-effective European country
      • Explore option of US, east coast event
      • Make sure that we are set for next year in terms of starting planning (end of November)
        • Verify that there is a team starting to plan/organize
  • Create issues for everything we talk about
  • 1 year roadmap: individually review given the feedback we’ve heard, be ready on the next board meeting to bring the results & post.
    • Draft post ready prior to the next meeting
    • After that meeting, we’ll do the same for the 3 month plan.
  • AWS buckets and payment
    • Potentially create a sponsorship campaign for this as we receive about 45k of sponsorship from OpenCollective and AWS buckets on their own are $7.5k/month
    • Each board member to reach out to their communities to check for sponsorship
  • Support
    • Conduct meeting to understand type of support, capacity and area of experience
    • Look into conducting a gap analysis
    • Areas we need more support (will do a thorough review)
      • More support in execution of board related action items and initiatives
      • Someone that is familiar with the Dutch accounting system

Again, enormous thank you to everyone that took part in NixCon (attendees, volunteers, sponsors, organizers, virtual viewers, and everything in between)

6 Likes

I’m sorry, what?

This is outrageous.

Assuming you’re being serious: why?

Per my understanding and discussions with others, the US-based org will only be for tax reasons (to allow US-based entities to donate with a tax deduction). I don’t see any cons to this.

3 Likes

I am confused. What is outrageous and why?

There has been a demand for tax deductible donations from US companies and US citizens for quite some time now. NixOS Foundation is based in The Netherlands and has no charitable status in the US (and not even in The Netherlands as that is very difficult to get for an open source project these days). We have talked to several organizations in Europe to see how they addressed this, if at all. The conclusion: you cannot have charitable status in the US if you are not based there.

Taking the phrasing at face value (maybe I shouldn’t? I assume this is an official protocol, but whatever)

Can run it simultaneously as the Dutch entity

means “we are going to create a US non-profit, we will dissolve the Dutch entity, and run the US non-profit as the Dutch entity”.

Which I think is outrageous, provided that 90% of nix users are in Europe, and laws in the US are, to be frank, quite bad. The EU has laws like the GDPR, which are lightyears from what any US law provides. As a European, I would not fee well-represented by a US foundation.

1 Like

That’s most likely a typo that happened when someone was taking notes, thanks for calling it out @Profpatsch!
It’s supposed to say/mean that “We are able to have it as an addition to the Dutch entity”.

2 Likes

Ah, no, that’s not what is going to happen. As Ron said, it should say “next to”, not “as”.

So much outrage around basically a simple misunderstanding :frowning:
Maybe next time, assume good faith and ask for clarification first.

Thank you for telling me what to do :clown_face:

But more seriously, these decisions have wide-reaching consequences on the community, so some scrutiny can be expected, down to the wording of protocols.

4 Likes