It has become evident that there exists a significant gap in understanding regarding the imperative nature of sponsorships for NixCon NA, and the vital role each sponsor’s contribution played in ensuring the realization of the convention.
The kickoff meeting convened in mid to late December of the preceding year. Subsequently, a decision was made to co-locate with SCaLE, necessitating swift and efficient planning and execution, with approximately 3.5 months allotted for preparation.
A month prior to the event, sponsorship contributions amounted to $24,000 USD, which was just sufficient to cover the venue expenses for the duration of the convention. However, no provisions were made for essential items such as swag, signage, refreshments, meals, or any other unforeseen financial requirements.
14 days prior to the event, the confirmation of Determinate Systems as a sponsor provided the necessary funds to cover the expenses incurred for the ordered shirts.
6 days prior to the event, the confirmation of three additional sponsors—worldquant, anduril, and garnix—confirmed their support, giving us the budget for snacks, drinks, and signage. Nevertheless, the budget remained insufficient to cover the cost of a single lunch, which would have resulted in a deficit.
It is imperative to emphasize that the participation of each sponsor was indispensable in the realization of this event.
@djacu, I believe there were offers to contribute money to NixCon NA in order to replace one of the mentioned sponsors and leave NixCon NA in the same financial situation. I believe the response from one of the organizers was that any additional money would be welcome but that the con would then have excess funds, which would be passed up to the Foundation. Any comments on that and what it means with respect to the indispensability of your sponsors?
@rhendric To my knowledge, we’ve received an offer from the foundation for $500, intended for a reusable item like a banner. While this gesture is generous and aligns with our goal of investing in items for future conferences, it is not substantial enough to replace the contributions from our sponsors.
I’m very happy with this policy, because I trust the individuals who’ll be making the decisions, both on a personal level and in their capacities as team members.
I feel strongly that it’s good that we’re not seeking a more algorithmic decision procedure for future decisions. That would be the most immense troll bait - we’re increasingly getting trolls as it is.
The chairman of the NixOS Foundation board (ref) is also one of the founders of Determinate Systems (ref, ref).
Determinate Systems is likely working for/with Anduril (Twitter thread: 1, 2, 3, 4, screenshot below; I don’t think there’s a NDA that prohibits you from just saying “no” if that wasn’t the case).
Before anyone gets the wrong idea: I’m fine with Determinate Systems, as a private company, potentially working for/with Anduril or any company that would be considered “controversial” by me or other members of this community.
Even if one has no disagreements with Anduril, it is an objective fact that there is a conflict of interest if Determinate Systems is working with them AND participating in modeling policy that determines whether Anduril is accepted or excluded.
This policy on conflicts of interest should be moved forward and in the best case it will bring the facts to light:
I hope that the idea our foundation members should have to state their conflicts of interest and recuse themselves accordingly is an uncontroversial one.
If this is actually true, I think trust is permanently broken for me when it comes to detsys and specific employees. They should have known to not be such major roadblocks in this process given the conflict of interest.
And, if this is true, they essentially sold out the community and its wishes for profit. This sucks so hard. I know that there are a lot of useful idiots who also support Anduril, but it’s significantly more sinister when it’s done for profit for your venture capital backed startup.
Also how they are co-opting terms like inclusive and diversity makes my stomach churn.
PSA that not everybody has a Twitter/X account (thankfully so, I’d add), so parts of this conversation are fundamentally obscured from them – specifically, threads are not displayed.
It would be great if people who post Twitter/X threads could ensure they are accessible by everyone.
Allowing sponsors to exclude other sponsors sets a troubling precedent.
This offer was made the day before the convention. It is unreasonable to expect us to rearrange finances at such short notice. This puts the success of the conference at risk.
Relying on an anonymous promise of $5k is indeed a risky move. This could have potentially jeopardized the success of the conference.
This is not the point I was trying to make earlier. It’s possible that it wasn’t entirely clear, so I’ll be more explicit. Given the tight timeframe, budget uncertainties, and the unpredictability of attendee numbers, our priority was ensuring the stability of the conference. It wasn’t about having or not having $5000; it was about whether we could have the conference at all.
I would argue the number one component in stability of the Nix conference is the speakers and content, even if they went back to being done remotely.
With that in mind I’m curious of how many speakers of talks at previous NixCon’s would be lost (if any) in the event sponsors they disagree with are accepted by the Nix foundation.
Should that risk also be considered? Perhaps it was, but was not publicized.
