 | NixOS Foundation | 439 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 106 Servers |
| NixOS Foundation | 439 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 106 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Apr 2024 | ||
 vcunat | Just far from current reality. | 20:58:45 |
 @joepie91:pixie.town | anyway, there are reasons why one might have a membership-driven foundation instead, but it's important to remember that it is not a magic band-aid for governance problems | 20:58:53 |
 nat-418 | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townI am not claiming it is unusual for Dutch foundations. | 20:59:01 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | if your governance is not already in a healthy place when you institute such a model, it is very easy to have things get worse | 20:59:30 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @vcunat:matrix.orgI think the current reality leaves something to be desired, namely, a meaningful relationship between the Foundation and the community. | 20:59:58 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @vcunat:matrix.org* I think the current reality leaves something to be desired, namely, a meaningful (i.e., not merely notional) relationship between the Foundation and the community. | 21:01:20 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townIf we had a loi 1901 association, contentious issues could be decisively settled by an absolute majority. There would be a clear mandate, direction, &c. not vague vibes and ressentiments. | 21:03:09 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | this is my day off so I am not going to have an extensive discussion about the dangers of majority rule | 21:03:38 |
 Arian | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyzYes this is the definition of a foundation. The bylaws are the basic template that basically every foundation uses | 21:04:09 |
| Arian | I am repeating myself again. But we had an extensive discussion about Associations vs Foundation really recently. Please scroll up :) | 21:04:40 |
| vcunat | Majority rule wouldn't help our situation at all. I'm quite convinced of that. | 21:05:03 |
| vcunat | If you a have controversial topic, voting is divisive. You'd get a result, but you couldn't say that the community would get appeased by that. | 21:07:19 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @vcunat:matrix.orgAs I understand it, today there is no real "community". It is merely notional, an abstract hypothetical of unknown persons. In a loi 1901 association, a definite and real body can make specific and actionable decisions. I would personally prefer to be on the losing side of a free and fair election than subject to unknown and mystifying machinations of unrelated social circles. | 21:14:46 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @vcunat:matrix.org* As I understand it, today there is no real "community". It is merely notional, an abstract hypothetical of unknown persons. In a loi 1901 association, a definite and real body can make specific and actionable decisions. I would personally prefer to be on the losing side of a free and fair election of my peers than subject to unknown and mystifying machinations of unrelated social circles. | 21:15:12 |
| nat-418 | And if majority rule is the problem, then demand unanimous consent. The point is not elections per se but a real community that can openly and freely organize. | 21:17:33 |
| nat-418 | * And if majority rule is the problem, then demand unanimous consent or sortition. The point is not elections per se but a real community that can openly and freely organize. | 21:18:23 |
| nat-418 | * And if majority rule is a problem, then demand unanimous consent or sortition. The point is not elections per se but a real community that can openly and freely organize. | 21:19:38 |
 Jonas Chevalier | 99% of the time the foundation is just holding assets, and the community is self-organizing. It's precisely when the foundation was asked to step in as an arbiter on the sponsorship conflict that it landed in hot waters, and re-inforced this notion that the foundation is in control. | 22:19:59 |
 @federicodschonborn:matrix.org changed their profile picture. | 22:47:32 | |
| nat-418 | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.comHow does "the community" make collective decisions? What is stopping someone from making a "Nix" product, event, or whatever else that contravenes such decisions? | 23:29:57 |
| 29 Apr 2024 | ||
 samrose | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townThis is a good point, and it seems within our community's grasp to get governance in good shape. There are known good frameworks for doing this. | 00:31:10 |
| samrose | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyzI think there is a community. People who show up in spaces that are provided by the organization/project/foundation are the community | 00:33:06 |
| samrose | In reply to @nat-418:nat-418.xyzI think what you state is worth discussion. There is probably some process that can work for the people here, to have access to informing the rules they live by wrt to nix organization and community participation | 00:34:25 |
| samrose | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.comProbably it is the case that there needs to be some form of structure, with people stewarding it, that would have allowed people to collectively decide on the sponsorship issue. But since that structure did not exist, and there was an effective vacuum of leadership, then the community turned to the foundation (and also because the foundation contained people who had been leading or at least organizing on some aspects, like events) | 00:36:41 |
| samrose | Not saying it is the foundation's job to do that leading per se, but saying I think I understand why these conditions emerged | 00:37:31 |
| Jonas Chevalier | Agreed. Looking back, having us take a lot of space at NixCon also helped reinforce this notion that we are important / leaders | 01:10:54 |
| samrose | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.com I actually didn't realize the purpose and nature of the foundation until you discussed it here recently. I worked at flox for 2 years. And from that experience, plus attending NixCon Paris 2022 I thought the foundation did much more than what you and some others have recently detailed (although I was likely wrong in that thinking as you are indicating) It does help that you keep re-iterating the nature and purpose of the foundation, plus how the "organization" seems to have intended for governance to happen. It does make sense that the purpose and function of the foundation is to hold assets. The foundation would likely be overwhelmed if it actually had to govern the community, or drive the governance. Thanks for clarifying that. | 01:15:55 |
| Jonas Chevalier | In reply to @samrose:matrix.orgyes, when I joined the foundation my perspective was that I would sacrifice my time to do boring things, to enable the community. It was supposed to be a boring position 😅 | 01:18:19 |
 tomberek | Jonas Chevalier: My perception is that when the Foundation was rebooted in 2022 that there were several concerns from the community; fear of corporate takeover, resistance to too much governance, hesitance to change the model from the admin-only Board from before. These are the sorts of things that came up in the Q+A and elsewhere. And I suspect that had a part to play in the reboot also reiterating that it would stay in the role of "holding assets". But the perception might have been that it would do more. Or some people even had that intention or hope - I did. So now there is a disconnect between the expectations. Then the Board is put into a position to take more action than it intended to. It became very un-boring. So far I'm trying to see if this perception is roughly accurate. If so, then I would strive to ensure that any other reboot avoids similar confusions. | 03:15:40 |
| nat-418 | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.comI keep coming back to this question of "what is the community and how does it decide?" because I have seen the board as having been sucked into the vacuum that samrose described. If contentious issues had a process for collective resolution, then I think there would be less confusion, conflation, and frankly criticism of the board per se: the "boring" work could be freed to be boring. | 05:00:11 |