What is your stance on sponsorships in the Nix community?

[nyabinary]

Question

What is your stance on sponsorships within the Nix community, particularly in light of the controversy surrounding military-industrial companies? How do you believe such sponsorships should be handled, and what steps would you take to avoid aligning Nix with companies that may conflict with the community’s ethical values? Are you in favor of merging this pr?(yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

Candidates I'd like to get an answer from

No response

Reminder of the Q&A rules

Please adhere to the Q&A guidelines and rules

[Gabriella439]

I believe that the Nix/NixOS community should prohibit unethical or morally grey industries from using the NixOS trademark including (but not limited to) the arms industry and cryptocurrency industry. For example, if the gambling industry were to suddenly catch Nix fever I'd propose adding them to the list of industry exclusions, too.

Such a policy would forbid these industries from using the NixOS trademark in promotional materials (e.g. for recruitment or their engineering blog). This would also prevent meetups or conferences that use the NixOS trademark from endorsing or accepting sponsorships from these industries.

The Nix Steering Community can debate the exact set of which industries we exclude and whether a given company falls into one those industries, but we should not shy away from maintaining such a list of exclusions or such a debate. Indeed, having a Nix Steering Community now makes it both possible and reasonable for us to effectively adjudicate which industries or companies conflict with our community's values and brand safety. We have created the framework necessary to resolve nuanced and complex decisions so we should use it!

Are you in favor of NixOS/foundation#140

Yes, I would have supported merging that pull request.

Note that the pull request did not establish a fully comprehensive list of which industries to exclude, but it doesn't have to. All of our governing documents are living documents that we can and should amend in response to the actual challenges that face our community (e.g. the uproar over the Anduril sponsorship). Our community policy documents do not need to be infinitely forward-compatible philosophical treatises on ethics.

[mschwaig]

Yes. I am in favor of excluding 'Companies that are heavily or primarily involved in military, defense, intelligence or weapons manufacturing' from sponsorships.

Sponsorship is a form of public association, so we should think about if our sponsors are broadly acceptable to the community.

At the same time I do think that sponsorship opportunities from sectors other than the military would not be nearly as controversial, so I do not think we should exclude other industries preemptively based on similar rules, but leave some of the power and responsibility for picking broadly acceptable sponsors at the level of the selection committee of the event.

I also think that it is important to stress that anyone working in the 'military, defense, intelligence or weapons manufacturing' is and should still be welcome in our community as an contributor, who is free to make their own personal choices, like working in these industries.

[tomberek]

My stance is that the community needs more sponsorships and partnerships. I am sensitive to the the fact that some companies are more controversial; my solution to ensuring they cannot unduly influence the project is to promote and promulgate Nix/NixOS adoption such that no single company nor industry can dominate the direction of the project. The greatest danger is takeover by a single entity, so we should ensure Nix is adopted and becomes critical technology far and wide. If only controversial industries adopt Nix, then we need to seriously consider why that is.

The approach I have taken is to consider the established practices used by other open-source communities who have dealt with these matters for quite a long time; we don't have to re-invent the wheel.

Regarding the mentioned controversy: I have been in both the military as well as part of founding a defense startup; then I left that world behind a few years ago. This gives me a unique perspective and experience of the better part of two decades with the industry. I am familiar with where there are true moral hazards and where they are FUD or driven by inexperience. I have been in the situation where difficult decisions had to be made, and also when a moral choice took precedence, regardless of the personal cost. If we are going to deal with the reality that such companies are part of the Nix user base, I have the experience to identify the relevant issues and ensure they are addressed.

Are you in favor of merging this pr?(yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

No.

[getchoo]

What is your stance on sponsorships within the Nix community

Similar to most FOSS projects of this size, I find sponsorships to be a necessity and openly welcome them. They do a lot in helping the community, who will then go back to benefit the group who financed the sponsorship. This is a symbiotic relationship, and without it I don't think anyone would win

How do you believe such sponsorships should be handled, and what steps would you take to avoid aligning Nix with companies that may conflict with the community’s ethical values?

Immediately, these sponsorships should fall in line with our stated community values, especially "People come first". If the organization seeking to sponsor the project does not meet these, we should not accept it. Likewise (as our community is always evolving), if there are major objections to a specific sponsor from our community, those must be taken into account; if a decision cannot be reached by the SC (or another group responsible for handling sponsors), a community vote would be the only fitting option IMO

Are you in favor of merging this pr?(yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

No (feel free to reach out via email or on matrix at getchoo:matrix.org for an expanded answer)

[Scrumplex]

What is your stance on sponsorships within the Nix community

I think sponsorships are great as they provide funding to the project. I think we should try our best not to be reliant on a single sponsor, as there is always a risk of them retracting their sponsorship.

particularly in light of the controversy surrounding military-industrial companies

I am opposed to sponsorships from military-industrial companies, companies extracting or processing fossil fuels and generally industries that are not sustainable ecologically or socially. While it might be enticing to take these sponsorships for additional funding, companies that are involved in exploitation, be it of our planet or people, are strictly against our common values.

How do you believe such sponsorships should be handled, and what steps would you take to avoid aligning Nix with companies that may conflict with the community’s ethical values?

If the SC and the board can't reach an agreement, I support @getchoo's proposal to hold a community vote.

Are you in favor of merging this pr?(yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

Yes

[phaer]

What is your stance on sponsorships within the Nix community, particularly in light of the controversy surrounding military-industrial companies? How do you believe such sponsorships should be handled, and what steps would you take to avoid aligning Nix with companies that may conflict with the community’s ethical values?

In general, Nix needs more money and resources to sustain it's growth - i.e. for the binary cache, darwin builders, conferences and many other things. To avoid any unduly influence by any single sponsor we should strive to gain as many of them as possible and we should actively seek out sponsors.

I believe questions on the ethical conduct of a given sponsor should best be left to the selection committee and be discussed on a case-to-case basis based on the agreed-upon community values. The duty of the SC would be to provide escalation points and handle conflict if when deemed necessary.

The current sponsorship policy defines a 5 person committee just for this task. I would be in favor to replace that committee with the SC entirely, as it's expected to provide the best representation of the community we have. Failing that, the SC should have explicit veto power against sponsorship here.

Are you in favor of merging this pr?(yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

No.

I do align with the general motive here and did sign the first, anti-MIC-sponsorship open letter.
But I don't think we gain any clarity by merging that PR as it just moves the discussion to i.e. what "heavily" or "primarily" might mean exactly for a given company.
I also believe the policy should preferably be generic and agnostic to specific industries, or at least include a complete listing of banned industries. This PR would not cover lots of other companies and institutions which I hope the sponsorship selection committee would object to as sponsors. i.e. sketchy crypto projects, gambling, spammers, etc.

[roberth]

Sponsorships are not merely donations; they entail benefits such as advertising and imply a form of partnership. Given the global nature of our community, we must commit to ethical sponsorship practices.

Therefore, we will reject sponsorships from entities that engage in harmful activities, including but not limited to military institutions, defense contractors, and companies involved in the production of weapons, surveillance equipment, or mass surveillance software. We should review and update this exclusion list to cover other harmful products and practices, with input from the community.

Note in particular the exclusion of military/affiliated organizations. This has been a topic of controversy before.
We can't let such an affiliation create division in our community, which is global, and whose members some may find themselves on the other end of a conflict.
(And I would recommend not to judge people for working in defense. Unfortunately, you can't have freedom without deterrence and defense, and the world needs good people inside the organizations that provide and/or control this dangerous power.)

We should not seek to exclude individuals from participating in the NixOS community based on their employment, except in cases where individuals explicitly promote or advertise their employer in a manner that contradicts our ethical guidelines.

EDIT: Forgot to explicitly conclude that I would answer yes - merge the PR.

[proofconstruction]

While I am happy for the organization to accept donations from anywhere that doesn't make the Foundation party to a money laundering scheme, but sponsorship agreements which amount to paid advertising should come under more scrutiny, and I would continue to develop the policy for handling these situations going forward. If an official event is being held in some venue, and the venue's regulations prohibit expression by certain industries, and an advertising agreement is under consideration with a party whose expression there would violate our obligations to the venue, we must have a framework in place to identify and prevent this scenario before the position and good name of the NixOS organization is jeopardized.

Some unstructured thoughts:

• I was born in the United States, into a large multicultural family of third- and fourth-generation European immigrants, many of whom came to America fleeing conflict. My great-grandfather was a sharpshooter in the US Army during WWII; my great-grandmother folded parachutes. "It's just how it was in those days". It's hard to escape. Many people are doing the same things today, as conflict finds them, and they are unable to escape. The past and present are terribly complicated.
• Depending on where we're located at any given time, I or my spouse, or sometimes both, are immigrants. I spent a few years teaching in China, which - according to many - was supposed to be a nation teeming with monsters howling for my ruin. All I found were friends. The world is not always, or even usually, "us versus them", and we should be deeply suspicious when anyone suggests otherwise: what are they trying to gain? Perhaps they are selling weapons.
• Throughout my career, I have repeatedly turned down opportunities to work in defense or national intelligence, even when I was running out of money and had no other options. As a mathematician, I have worked to block the US National Security Agency from recruiting at conferences. Academic colleagues and advisors close to me have foregone financial support from these organizations. I have no interest in participating in activities or projects which aim to make death. The world has plenty of death without adding more.
• As a teacher, I can't abide the thought of my students - the children of "the enemy"! - coming to harm by my actions, or by my inactions, or those of anyone I could've stopped. Some students, I have already had to mourn. This is a pain no one should ever feel.
• In America, much of our culture glorifies violence. There are people who revel in death, destruction, and the end of all things. Sometimes I wish death would visit them, so the rest of us may get on with things peacefully.
• There are organizations using Nix to develop machines for waging war. As an open source project, we cannot stop them from doing this. What we can do is say, unequivocally, that we condemn this use of our work. We can, if we choose, reject their code contributions, or their money. We can delete their posts and ban their accounts. We can wish them a very cheerful "go fall on your bombs". Sometimes I wish we could use their weapons to defend us from them, these people who would break everything anyone has ever worked to build. May they find the hell they work so hard for. It's disgusting. The worst of what we are, turned away from what could be. I want no part in any of it.

I'd merge the PR. It's the least I can do.

[asymmetric]

First of all, I agree 100% that sponsorships entail more than just donations. When we accept a sponsor, we are in fact boosting the organization that sponsors us, which means we have to be more vetting them more thoroughly than if we were just accepting their money or contributions.

I would say the best we can do is to have follow the heuristic of "Would accepting sponsorship from organization X create large tensions in the community?". If the answer is most likely yes, we should not accept that sponsor (Obviously, we shouldn't break any law of the hosting country/foundation either, duh).

This way the foundation doesn't have to enter the extremely fraught question of what its values are in relation to topics which are entirely outside its purview and mandate.

As people have already said, we are a global community, we shouldn't position ourselves in defense of any specific geopolitical order. So arms manufacturers are most likely out, by definition -- but not based on whom they purport to "defend" with their weapons.

Therefore, i think NixOS/foundation#140 could be superseded by the more general heuristic above, but in the interest of incremental progress, to the question

Are you in favor of NixOS/foundation#140 (yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

I would answer yes.

[Infinidoge]

Being an organizer of Purdue Hackers, I've seen a lot of how the club handles donations and sponsorships, and that has been the biggest thing that has informed my thoughts. There are times when we have accepted sponsorships from companies that I personally think are a bit icky, such as Cloudflare. In those situations, the amount of funding it provided the club outweighed my personal feelings about the company, and was ultimately harmless. However, there are other situations in which accepting a sponsorship from a company would be absolutely unacceptable to me, and in those situations I speak out about it.

The unfortunate problem is that those with the most money that is able to be thrown at organizations like Nix will have their hands in parts of the military/defense/intelligence sectors in various ways, albeit comparatively. A comment on the mentioned PR brings up this point pretty succinctly. I don't personally deem Google/Amazon/Microsoft to be out of the running for funding Nix, but a policy that handles everything like that is difficult. So long as it excludes arms manufacture, and it avoids alienating the community like has happened in the past, then I think we're along the right track.

Are you in favor of merging NixOS/foundation#140?

Yes.

[jtojnar]

What is your stance on sponsorships within the Nix community, particularly in light of the controversy surrounding military-industrial companies?

I am moderately opposed sponsorships from MIC companies that would associate them with the Nix project. I would be strongly opposed to such from gambling companies.

If we were to vote on such sponsorships, I would consider community objections seriously.

How do you believe such sponsorships should be handled, and what steps would you take to avoid aligning Nix with companies that may conflict with the community’s ethical values?

I would be in favour of sponsorship policy coming from the SC that would explicitly reject sponsorships from MIC. I would also want to poll the community if new potentially problematic sponsor approached.

Are you in favor of merging this pr?(yes or no answers only for this specific question, please).

Yes

[nyabinary]

I'm leaning to being opposed to sponsorships from the military industry complex, and most definitely opposed to sponsorships from gambling companies. I also want to make sure that none of our community values are being compromised in relationship to being sponsored by any company. Furthermore, I intend to make sure that none of the companies potentially sponsoring us have influence on the way Nix is run and the direction Nix is going. By advocating sponsorship which incorporates these points, I hope that is resistant to corporate influences and Nix will continue to be community-run and for the community first and foremost.

Are you in favor of merging this pr?

Yes.