Hi Tom,
The foundation took a non-neutral stance with last year’s NixCon situation.
It is disingenuous here to play up the “neutrality” card. It was discarded already.
Sincerely,
— Samuel
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While I might not be particularly impressed by the contents of the policy, I am impressed that you managed to power through shipping it. Thank you for this effort.
Time will obviously tell, but I am cautiously optimistic that this will help dispell corporate risk in associating with NixOS 
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To provide my thoughts:
(I sent this same text as an email to the foundation, and am sharing it here for, well… discourse)
I am very happy to see an implementation of an official sponsorship policy, as well as the open call for feedback from the community. In particular, it is a relief to see specifics on the timing and process of sponsorship decisions. This implementation is definitely an improvement over the previous “undefined behavior” of sponsorship decisions.
However, I would like to express my disappointment in some of the policy’s specifics, and while it may be a step up from before, I am worried that it does not do enough to ensure the views of the community, especially those in marginalized groups, are respected.
The make-up of the selection committee is mostly those who have a stake in accepting sponsorships. There is only one person (the moderator) who might take the views of community members into consideration. Much less the views of marginalized groups.
The 4-vote rule seems designed to allow the rest of the committee to veto the moderator (the only one who realistically could be expected to vote to decline a sponsorship for the community’s sake) if a sponsorship is lucrative enough.
The combined effect of these rules is that no progress has been made whatsoever to ensure either that marginalized groups have their voices heard or even that anyone in the community (read: those who actually contribute to the project) has their point of view represented in the committee. Instead, it gives con organizers and the foundation authority to disregard the community but now with a big “official policy” stamp on it. So it will be easier to shrug off any dissent as illegitimate.
We’re all here because we want what’s best for the Nix Project; in other words, to minimize damage to it. The hurt that is already in the community is very real, and the requests from those hurt are very achievable. Meanwhile nobody at all is hurt by simply rejecting such an unpopular sponsor. No sponsor is, after all, the default result when no action is taken. The only argument against that I have heard is some vague, hypothetical fear that some future sponsor (that does not yet exist, but might someday) could back out of sponsoring due to fear of community backlash.
The willingness to torch so much of our contributors’ goodwill for the sake of some imaginary problem is deeply concerning and offensive to me. I beg the board to reconsider their policy, as well as their attitudes towards those who have already been hurt the most.
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“I care about the Foundation being pro-X”
“i care about the Foundation being anti-X”
“i care about the Foundation being neutral-X”
let’s not forget that this isn’t some nebulous anti-“whatever” thing. we, as the nixos community, are taking a stance against weapons manufacturers that have an explicit profit motive to perpetuate mass violence. it’s incredibly disingenuous to act like that part can be left out of the discussion.
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This guy pretty much sums up the position that a lot of us have on this, but find difficult to express.
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I care about the persons, the individuals and the few.
I do not care about the organization they may be part of.
I want the foundation to care and cater for the persons.
Companies are not persons, despite their best efforts.
Yes, this includes the people currently associating with organizations I don’t want to associate with. I care about them. I hope everyone gives them the same baseline effort of care they do anyone else. I don’t want to judge an individual solely from their involvement with an organization (e.g. employer).
These persons are welcome to contribute as themselves to the community, to the project, to Nix, NixOS, and the broader ecosystem.
These companies can contribute through these people (anyway, the company is without meaning, without its people).
I do not want these companies to be able to be officially advertised for using the community’s reputation.
There is such a thick miasma of FUD being built around this. It’s ridiculous.
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I dunno how to feel about this. It basically just says “we have the power to accept or reject any sponsorship we want as long as it’s not too controversial.”
You already had that. Organizers are not stupid. They know sponsorships can be controversial. And it was already in their best interest to avoid such controversy. And yet this best interest failed. This policy seems like a nothingburger.
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I have seen tons of dismissiveness in exactly this vein, but exactly 0 actual arguments, which is why I state quited decisively that I have seen no evidence whatsoever that you are correct anywhere I have looked. Now perhaps I am just the world’s biggest idiot, sure, but it’d be nice to hear an actual justification for once.
And now that desmissiveness is being more directly targeted at the group of people who are precisely the least likely to agitate and respond in kind; unfortunate. I don’t think this statement is true; I think the reason it was delayed is because there was a lot of “this is right” without a lot of “this is why”. The latter is kinda a requirement for a lot of folks, so while I get it is quite easy and tempting to blame “the other”, I really think it would be more appropriate to place at least a portion of that blame on “the self”.
No it’s not. It is however quite so to continue to dismiss it without any actual argument. As I’ve already stated, there is a long standing history of those who came before us of putting politics to the side and getting to work, maybe not in their personal spaces, but at work and in open-source spaces, very much so. It worked quite well and got us this far. So yeah, far from being discarded, it is very likely the actual solution, or at least a part of it.
I would absolutely agree, but for entirely different reasons.
In any case it was not my intention to derail the conversation, but far from being irrelevant or off-topic, they are points that keeping getting utterly dismissed, while they may yet hold some substantial amount of utility to solve our actual problems, so it’s not exactly my fault alone that I feel compelled to finally address them, and after no small amount of time holding my tongue, since apparently, few else will.
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Can you please elaborate? I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
I have seen tons of dismissiveness in exactly this vein, but exactly 0 actual arguments, which is why I state quited decisively that I have seen no evidence whatsoever that you are correct anywhere I have looked.
Sorry, just to clarify, you are asking for evidence/arguments that Political Neutrality is a poor policy for moving forward, right? Please let me know if I’m misreading you and you are referring to something else. Because the argument to be made there is very simple: Neutrality is the current policy and has been for years. We can tell that it hasn’t worked out because of the situation we’re in now: a lot of people hurt and very very upset.
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For clarification, are all third-party sponsored events intended to be facilitated by the PL team, or does it mainly depend on size? I saw options for both ways, and am curious what the scope is there.
The policy itself, as written, looks like a decent compromise. 
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My donations are gone until trust is regained, if it ever is.
Neutrality in response to multiple missteps and large parts of the community expressing a problem is wholly inadequate and frankly insulting.
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Organizing a conference is a thankless job. Though despite what happened, good job on seeing it through the end.
The result wouldn’t have been any different from the conference’s point of view, whether or not this had happened. People that would have been affected wouldn’t have participated, or if there still was discomfort, people are more likely to not to be confrontational jerks to not sour the mood for the others.
That is not relevant. The statement “Being upset” here, as far as I can tell, serves as a way to not state what the problem people had.
I will remind you that the problem here is not about being upset. The problem is using the NixOS project name, via NixCon, as a vehicle for advertising a weapons manufacturer.
Which?
The words you say I could have said, but we still don’t agree. This is an international organization. We have to find a way to have multiple cultures co-exist. This does not mean forcing your (which?) culture on the community.
Was this your conference? Were you alone in organizing and planning? Were there foundation resources involved? Was the NixOS community involved?
This was a conference organized for, and in an official manner, with the NixOS project in mind. With this comes the responsibility of not misrepresenting the community or the project.
Neutrality would have been the best approach. But it seems using that word is bound to leave people talking past each-other. Being neutral in this situation does not mean accepting all sponsors. Especially not a sponsor that you knew full well the community (which you are representing) is highly uncomfortable with.
That’s your prerogative. You have to understand that, culturally speaking, when there is communication breakdown with an organization, striking generally works.
Also I find it displeasing in how you present this, as if it were people who had responsibilities toward the project, and who did not do the expected duties. First of all, this is what a strike is. And then, unless you can say otherwise, this is volunteer efforts. No one was contracted or paid to work.
This is an entitled and privileged thing to ask.
I have not been traditionally employed since 2018. Who should I ask?
Many organizations, even those form the tech sector, don’t have the same incomprehensibly large capital as tech firms in the USA, and people will also generally not have the means to access resources to do it either.
What I’m reading, from someone who is a representative of the NixOS project (yes you are) is that all the time, energy and effort that I contribute to the project means nothing, as long as I cannot pay. And that I’m worth less than the very little 5000$ the sponsor provided for NixCon. And less than the 5850€ Anduril donated.
Thanks, good motivation talk.
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I can not exactly call the countless of hours of very productive work lost a success, nor the large PR disaster this conference caused to the entire ecosystem because of accepting a sponsor that was already known to be controversial among a large part of the community and for money the conference didn’t need.
Well NixOS is first and for most a community project so you can only expect professionalism to a certain degree. Please also keep in mind that professionalism and workplace culture vastly differs between countries and that you are writing this with what seems like a very USA/Silicon Valley tainted view.
And are you really saying you prefer that long standing community member should rather not attend a large nix conference because they feel uncomfortable with the sponsor instead of doing the uncontroversial thing of just not accepting the sponsor?
I won’t argue about this being your culture or not but I’ll say that there is quiet a few USA-based people who also signed the open letter and some who even stated in this thread that they are not fine with MIC sponsorships.
I remember very well that you pushed for the inclusion of Anduril as a sponsor last NixCon EU, so either your desire on doing so changed or you aren’t true to yourself. People banding together and going to strike is very common across a lot of European countries and very much part of the European culture. And are you seriously asking people who showed dedication and commitment for multiple years to continue working on tasks they do out of there good will without any monetary gains when they become uncomfortable with how there work is used to advertise companies going clearly against there personal ethics?
This is missing the point by a very long shot and is straight up disrespectful to people who invested countless of hours into contributions. All the open letter asked for is not to use the community as a vehicle for advertising the military industrial complex.
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I am relatively new to the nix community so I don’t know if I can make an opinion outside of my own.
Nixcon NA was really the second time I have ever been to a conference in my career (severe social anxiety) but it was fun and learned a lot.
I do understand both sides of this and would like to maybe see that we look into how others are handling putting on conferences without much sponsorships.
I feel the best ones to research is handmade cities and sycl (Software You Can Love)
Each host has talked about what it takes to run a conference this way.
Abner (runs handmade cities) gives insight into how he runs them.
Loris has an interesting take as well
I feel you don’t need too much sponsorship for the conferences at all really. Just a community that is wanting to make great things and teach about great things. This does take a dedicated team(s) to move but if started early enough, it can be done.
Sorry if this sounds like I am derailling the conversation, I am hoping it is not. I just wanted to give another option outside of sponsorships. I am a lover of DIY music and I feel open source is that.
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s/Most/some of the people who bothered to comment on Reddit
You linked to a previous message of yours with a similar comment, where people have already debunked how biased it was. This smells bad faith.
This seems to a rather bold conclusion to arrive at from a reddit thread with less than half as many comments - including those critical of the sponsor in question - compared to signatures on the open letter.
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A whole single person https://nixos-users-for-western-mil-and-govs.github.io/ 
(neither of these samples are representative, the open letter however is representative of a substantial portion of contributors)
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Providing examples from the real world of what we may want to achieve is always helpful. I did not know about either of the conferences you mentioned, so I definitely appreciate you bringing them up.
@j-k the license under which you allow your work to be used is an entirely different discussion than who you accept sponsorship from.
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I want to drive home a related point: when a random group of Redditors looks at that list, mainly what they see and concern themselves with is that the list exists and its length. Because, frankly, they don’t really know the community of contributors.
But when I look I see, for instance:
- maintainers of important (collections of) packages in Nixpkgs
- individuals who have helped dozens, if not hundreds, of contributors get their first PRs into shape
- folks who have been actively helping others with Nix in community channels longer than this Discourse instance has existed
- people who have helped me, personally, on my Nix journey
- contributors who’ve only been here a year or two but have contributed way more than I ever did when I was active
- speakers who have delivered talks at NixCon
- Nix teachers who regularly give their time answering questions and demoing Nix usage on YouTube
- community moderators, who try to help a lot of people who don’t always get along to coexist and work together
- maintainers of cool, interesting downstream projects based on Nix
Those are all from specific names I see on the list, not some generic idea of what Nix(OS) users and contributors are. And it’s not to say that the signatories of the list have the final word because of that, or that the anti-MIC sponsorship side of this dispute is unique in including great contributors. But understanding who other community members are results in a different kind of engagement. A group of contributors don’t even have to form a majority to matter, to deserve a better response than an offhand dismissal.
All of that is invisible to Redditors who aren’t really embedded in this community, when they make drive-by comments. It’s one thing to be deeply frustrated or even angry with someone who works on a common project with you because you disagree about the direction or policy that the project needs. It’s another to dismiss someone because you don’t even realize how they’ve contributed to the community you’re supposedly a part of. This dispute belongs to people in the former situation, not the latter.
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