 | NixOS Foundation | 492 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 126 Servers |
| NixOS Foundation | 492 Members |
| Public room for chatting with the NixOS Foundation Board | 126 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar 2024 | ||
 Julien | Community is breaking appart | 20:26:46 |
 @theophane:hufschmitt.net | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townObviously not | 20:26:50 |
| Julien | There is a serious threat of "forking" or durable member loss | 20:27:05 |
| Julien | We have already lost crucial members over this, we have lost one of the most active members of the infra team | 20:28:22 |
 @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @theophane:hufschmitt.netI would normally refer to a Code of Conduct defining that more clearly, but in our case we do not really have a CoC that does this to begin with, so that doesn't really work here. this is a difficult thing to define on the spot since it relies on a contextual understanding of what creates unsafe environments for people (marginalized folks in particular) that I'm not sure can be assumed here. I believe that there is a proposal to engage an outside expert on matters of community safety, and although I'm not familiar with the contents of their trainings, I expect that they will be able to convey a workable definition of 'community safety' for this purpose | 20:29:54 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | I can attempt to define what I, specifically, mean by 'community safety', of course, but I expect that that will end up being quite a lengthy conversation and I'm probably not the only one who wants to say things here :p | 20:30:53 |
 @ultranix:matrix.org | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townwhat do marginalized folks have to do with a defense industry sponsor to nixcon? | 20:31:52 |
 piegames | I think this was a more general point to illustrate "safety" | 20:33:06 |
| @theophane:hufschmitt.net | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townRight. Thanks for the partial explanation, I think this is enough to frame the big picture even if we don't yet define the details | 20:35:27 |
 infinisil | In reply to @aleksana:mozilla.orgI don't think it should be consensus-based, but rather veto-based, e.g. at least 10% of representatives (needs to be defined, but can be done) need to be against it | 20:37:20 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | Théophane: hmm, I suppose there is a fourth option, too; a bare-minimum interim policy (or interim interim policy?) that at least this specific sponsor is not an acceptable one | 20:38:06 |
| @ultranix:matrix.org | Overall, I’ve heard extremely positive feedback about the foundation team, and I can imagine folks who have skirted the edge on being a positive contributor to the ecosystem may feel threatened by it. That is normal, too. If parts of the community are unhappy with the foundation's decisions or other processes / outcomes of the project, it is always possible to exercise the four freedoms of open source and create the project and community they want. | 20:39:09 |
| infinisil | Main reason being that if you accept X as sponsor, you risk losing contributors, but if you don't accept them, you don't risk losing contributors | 20:39:10 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | under the assumption that we don't yet have a horde of similarly problematic sponsors beating down the door for the next event, and so this would provide at least an immediate-term policy for a case that is clearly considered problematic, functioning as a starting point for a more refined policy and giving everyone more time to figure out a better policy going forward | 20:40:06 |
 raitobezarius | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.townTo clarify the proposal you mention, I suggested multiple times in the past days regarding the moderation discussion we had to work with https://otter.technology/ who had success (?) with other large scale communities (which is what we are starting to look like). | 20:40:35 |
 fgaz joined the room. | 20:47:33 | |
 aleksana | We really lack some sort of decision-making mechanism. Most of the current RFCs are solving problems that were a mess (or poor assumption) in the previous development process, so most people would agree because it does not make the status quo worse. Disagreement often occurs in details such as features and package maintenance, but disputes often end due to active promotion or rejection by people with authority. This masks the above problems, but is not a long-term viable and healthy solution. It just so happens that this dispute has brought up the issue again. | 20:47:41 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | yep, this is true. unfortunately, it ties into a moderation problem - last time I tried to broach this topic, I had to drop it due to abusive behaviour from another community participant that was not adequately responded to, and I have heard similar stories from others | 20:49:13 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | (and have experienced some variant of this problem myself multiple times by now) | 20:49:55 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | this is more or less the same problem that initially spawned the suggestion of engaging with an outside expert to begin with, I believe | 20:50:34 |
 patka | I'm going to remove myself from this conversation because it is burning me out. I'd just like to leave with copying a post from elsewhere that perfectly states what I feel is most problematic. > This is a sentiment which has been dragging out for quite a while now, but currently I feel it more than ever: The current foundation board increasingly feels disconnected from the community and its members. I am starting to doubt that the current cast is well suited for making meaningful decisions aligned with many of our contributors. Setting aside the question whether or not military sponsorships are okay in general, given the debacle at the last NixCon, simply accepting Anduril was an unacceptable thing to do. I still have difficulties grasping how at all these stages seemingly nobody anticipated the community fallout (and the very real PR damage to the project as a whole) that such a decision would have. And while yes the sponsorship selection was mainly done by the NixCon NA organizers AFAICT, the ball ultimately should have stopped at the Foundation. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixcon-na-2024-is-getting-sponsored-by-anduril-what-to-do-about-it/41258/13 | 21:05:53 |
| patka | * I'm going to remove myself from this conversation because it is burning me out. I'd just like to leave with copying a post from elsewhere that perfectly states what I feel is most problematic. > "This is a sentiment which has been dragging out for quite a while now, but currently I feel it more than ever: The current foundation board increasingly feels disconnected from the community and its members. I am starting to doubt that the current cast is well suited for making meaningful decisions aligned with many of our contributors. Setting aside the question whether or not military sponsorships are okay in general, given the debacle at the last NixCon, simply accepting Anduril was an unacceptable thing to do. I still have difficulties grasping how at all these stages seemingly nobody anticipated the community fallout (and the very real PR damage to the project as a whole) that such a decision would have. And while yes the sponsorship selection was mainly done by the NixCon NA organizers AFAICT, the ball ultimately should have stopped at the Foundation." https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixcon-na-2024-is-getting-sponsored-by-anduril-what-to-do-about-it/41258/13 | 21:07:23 |