| 11 Apr 2024 |
 delroth | that's the whole point | 13:24:47 |
 Federico Damián Schonborn | In reply to @delroth:delroth.net
FWIW because some people might not have seen that there's discussion ongoing on other media, and since the foundation hasn't replied to the question explicitly yet - so far DetSys's answer to "are you working with Anduril" is "we can't say, we might have an NDA" https://twitter.com/grhmc/status/1778386025007460682 Thanks, sadly Xitter won't show threads for non logged-in users 🫠 | 13:31:47 |
 pareto-optimal-dev | It feels like the underlying question here is:
Should someone that can't or doesn't answer whether they have conflicts of interest be in charge of a foundation? | 13:33:00 |
 Arian | Very bluntly. I don't think there is a conflict of interest at all here. Eelco is an employee of DetSys not a founder | 14:02:05 |
| delroth | In reply to @arianvp:matrix.org
Very bluntly. I don't think there is a conflict of interest at all here. Eelco is an employee of DetSys not a founder https://github.com/NixOS/foundation needs an update then, since it says "Eelco Dolstra is Founder / Secretary of the Board of Determinate Systems" | 14:03:23 |
| Arian | Oh nevermind. I somehow assumed he was an employee | 14:04:26 |
| Arian | (Just for the reason Detsys existed before Eelco joined it.) | 14:04:52 |
| Federico Damián Schonborn | DetSys' site shows both Eelco and Graham as founders | 14:09:04 |
| delroth | But also to your wider point, there's a reason why some people have been mentioning that in general they're uncomfortable about the amount of corporate nix users representation in the board (which I understand comes in large part from historical reason and correlation with available time to work on nix stuff). IMO there's good reason to believe that someone whose salary depends on selling Nix to companies will have different incentives from other less corporate parts of the community. | 14:09:07 |
| delroth | (I'm personally not convinced that this is a huge problem to solve nor that the incentive misalignment can't be compensated for - but that's assuming the board is even interested in compensating for that misalignment) | 14:10:15 |
| delroth | * (I'm personally not convinced that this is a huge problem to solve or that the incentive misalignment can't be compensated for - but that's assuming the board is even interested in compensating for that misalignment) | 14:10:26 |
 Janik (they/them) | Fwiw there is a conflict of Interest policy in a pr https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/pull/40 but I don't know the current state of it. | 14:14:05 |
| pareto-optimal-dev | In reply to @janik0:matrix.org
Fwiw there is a conflict of Interest policy in a pr https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/pull/40 but I don't know the current state of it. Perhaps the best course of action is to simply try to get this passed? | 14:18:00 |
 @jonringer:matrix.org |
Definition: For the purposes of this rule, a conflict of interest is any situation in which a member's personal, financial, or other interests conflict, or appear to conflict, with the interests of the foundation leading the NixOS project.
I know it doesn't mean much coming from me. But the sponsorship wouldn't compensate any of the members personally, nor would it likely contribute to any of the consulting companies securing or not securing a contract (not to mention, likely illegal). Jonas can correct me if I'm wrong, but the intent there was to ensure that a member wasn't influencing board decisions for anything other than the betterment of the Nix ecosystem (which I agree with).
| 14:43:37 |
| delroth | that's a very narrow definition of "conflict of interest", there's a lot of indirect pressures and biases that come up when you have to take decisions regarding people that fund you | 14:50:29 |
| @jonringer:matrix.org | I agree, there's more nuance. | 14:51:17 |
| delroth | how does it reflect on (imaginary example to specifically not say detsys) flox/anduril relationships if the CEO of flox says "no we don't want nixos to be sponsored by anduril" basically | 14:51:24 |
| delroth | even the doubt that there might be retaliation is enough to influence decisions | 14:51:43 |
| delroth | which is why usually people willingly remove themselves from those decisions and declare their conflicts of interest... | 14:52:07 |
| @jonringer:matrix.org | I partially agree with some of your points, however, I'm not in a position currently to expand further (given my employment). And I think my views as a veteran of the USAF (and first hand experience within the military) will likely get conflated with my current employment. | 14:57:12 |
| delroth | I also don't think it's an exact science btw - there's a very wide spectrum of indirect biases (what about fear of missing out on future money, for example?), but in general "is currently actively taking money from the subject of the decision" seems like a good clear threshold to start with | 14:58:29 |
| delroth | (and I personally believe you solve the other indirect biases by increasing diversity of viewpoints, which as mentioned above is currently a bit lacking in a board where 100% of members are in positions where anduril could theoretically very well be their client) | 14:59:49 |
| delroth | * (and I personally believe you solve the other indirect biases by increasing diversity of viewpoints, which as mentioned above is currently a bit lacking in a board where 100% of members are in positions where anduril could theoretically very well become their client) | 15:00:09 |
 problems | something i haven't seen discussed at all, who exactly benefits from anduril's sponsorship? because it's certainly not me. | 15:05:15 |
| problems | it doesn't seem to me that we're in any dire need to accept money from anyone given the project's enormous balance on opencollective and the comparatively low budget | 15:07:40 |
| problems | * it doesn't seem to me that we're in any dire need to accept money from anyone given the project's enormous balance on opencollective and the comparatively low disbursement | 15:08:14 |
| delroth | In reply to @kity:kity.wtf
it doesn't seem to me that we're in any dire need to accept money from anyone given the project's enormous balance on opencollective and the comparatively low disbursement the foundation is not properly updating financials on opencollective so you're not seeing the whole financials | 15:09:02 |
| delroth | the foundation is in fact very in the red right now and burning through saved money | 15:09:11 |
| problems | on what exactly? | 15:09:27 |
| delroth | AWS, mostly | 15:09:35 |
