[policy proposal]: Sponsorship
Closed this issue · 44 comments
Problem
The Foundation needs more clarity about what sponsorship entails and the policies around it. This is further supported by the controversy around NixCon 2023 and the growing need for support and funding. Future donations becomes harder when potential sponsors do not know what the support is for, how to do it, and the procedures.
Approach
Look at the existing situation. Then look at existing policies in other organizations as well as considering the issue from first principles.
Existing
There is no overarching policy from the Foundation. There seems to be no policies applied to the NixOS OpenCollective (or it is not visible?). OpenCollective has various categories use to reject contributions: https://docs.opencollective.com/help/collectives/moderation#rejecting-categories-of-financial-contributors ; things like gambling, SEO, VPN, adult content.
Apache
I'll use the Apache Software Foundation as a starting point for looking at other org's policies and how they address a similar problem.
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/18xDS-IO1TG15ZsI26Wk5aXvsRhrNLMozrHYXjyvqaVA/edit
- https://apache.org/foundation/sponsorship.html
- https://www.apache.org/foundation/sponsorship.html#who-can-sponsor-the-asf
Discussion and Thoughts
A few things to note in no particular order:
- the tiers for Apache are about an order of magnitude larger than the tiers we currently provide
- the higher tiers provide additional things like a Case Study and testimonial placement
- what is a "Dedicated Sponsorship Ambassador"?
- ASF policy has a pretty simple baseline for things to be legal entities in the US and "state of nexus". Additional restrictions are that landing pages must be PG.
- ASF includes a clause for:
Demonstrably committed to open source software and The Foundation’s mission.We would have to update or modify it as our mission is different:The mission of the foundation is to support the Nix ecosystem's infrastructure, and projects implementing the purely functional deployment model.. (ref: https://nixos.org/community/).- Though it is unclear what this adds.... providing a donation itself can be viewed as committing to the mission.
- Do all sponsors need to provide this "proof of commitment"? What form would that take?
- It is good to ensure that sponsorship content is relevant.
Three-way test
This is fairly similar to Apache's "state of nexus" idea.
A sponsorship shall confirm to the legal and policy restrictions with regards to
- their point of origin,
- This would be someone's own state/country/province, or an organization's business locations or incorporation.
- the NixOS Foundation
- The Netherlands non-profit status comes with restrictions as would any other non-profit status we'd like to maintain.
- restrictions by relevant third-party agreements.
- for example, that of OpenCollective itself, service providers, and event venues. These will be different based on the situation.
Proposal and next steps
- Refine the policy:
The NixOS Foundation's sponsorship policy is meant to enable clear, quick, and fair determination of allowed sponsorship without requiring extensive debate or uncertainty.
Nevertheless, the Foundation retains the right to decline sponsorship by a Board vote in cases where it would hinder the Foundation's mission.
Projects, Teams, and Events funded by the NixOS Foundation may extend upon this policy in written form as part of the request for funding.
Sponsors must be individuals or organizations that are legal to operate in and comply with the laws and policies of; their own origin, that of the NixOS Foundation, and of relevant third-party agreements.
Sponsorship links, material, and content must be safe for minors and work environments and should be a home page or content related to the Foundation's mission.
- review tiers
- Create a page similar to ASF's to make the policy and procedures clear. Most of the procedural details are likely to be non-controversial
- Post policy to OpenCollective
Sponsors must be individuals or organizations that are legal to operate in and comply with the laws and policies of; their own origin, that of the NixOS Foundation, and of relevant third-party agreements.
This will basically mean arbitrary laws apply, depending on country of origin, if that will be the policy, no restriction is just as good (bad)
Sponsors must be individuals or organizations that are legal to operate in and comply with the laws and policies of; their own origin, that of the NixOS Foundation, and of relevant third-party agreements.
This will basically mean arbitrary laws apply, depending on country of origin, if that will be the policy, no restriction is just as good (bad)
Maybe that needs to be explicited (probably if you read it wrong), but this has to be read as a logical AND, not an OR: The sponsors must be legal in ALL OF their own country of origin, the Netherlands (NixOS Foundation country) and the other relevant places. Which means that it's at least as strict as the Dutch law for instance, not at most.
That makes a lot more sense, please clarify that in the final proposal.
So that makes it a bit more complicated though, no? It effectively means that somebody will have to evaluate whether something would be legal in the country and that's not that easy, is it?
What happens if whatever that company does is neither clearly illegal nor clearly legal?
e.g. (thinking about the elephant in the room) a quick search shows that
The Netherlands now recognises that fully autonomous weapons systems should be explicitly prohibited, and supports the creation of new rules to regulate the use of other autonomous weapons systems.
https://automatedresearch.org/news/netherlands-announces-new-position-on-autonomous-weapons-systems/
Obviously this has to be evaluated by some law expert (e.g. I don't know if that is law or just some person saying that they think this should be the case :D ) but it shows that the situations is not that easy, it also means that if the nixos foundation wants to precisely adhere to this, they would have to invest into experts.
My counter proposal would be to, in those situations, be conservative and not admit the sponsor.
The linked document is a position paper of the where they explain what their opinion and intent is on various subjects. It's now a law. It's an intention to perhaps eventually start work on proposing a law at some point in the future. I don't think any concrete law proposals came out of this position paper as of yet.
The position paper is rather positive towards autonomous weapons systems overall. It calls for close collaboration which NATO partners and industry to build them but with the right checks and balances. (E.g. the systems shouldn't be fully autonomous but semi-autonomous and need to work using explainable principles)
And that the government should come up with requirements and certifications such that companies like Anduril can effectively build these systems for them.
I'd actually call the document a rather positive attitude towards companies like Anduril. Not negative.
I don't think it's making the point you're trying to make :')
That’s fine.
I cannot and will not judge on whether or not this is the case.
The point I am trying to make, excuse me if that was not clear, is that it it is not obvious what „complies with the laws of …“ means in the context of such companies.
Again, even if the paper is in favour with companies like Anduril, for me it is not obvious, I do not know the legislation that would have to apply and I would expect the foundation (in future/ if this becomes policy) to either justify why this actually does comply or not admit the sponsorship.
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-open-board-meeting-2024-03-20/41209/2
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
I love the focus on the ASF model here. As I wrote in Nix deserves great governance, I think the ASF's model of focusing on individual contributors divorced from their corporate attachments would be a great fit. I'll call out two relevant points of their document The Apache Way:
- Earned Authority the influence someone has is based on what they publicly contribute to the project, and it doesn’t matter who they work for.
- Community of Peers people don’t represent organizations. They’re just an individual. Their votes are equal, and everyone is a volunteer even if they’re paid to do the work. And to quote: “Domain expertise is appreciated; Benevolent Dictators For Life are disallowed.”
These two points are backed up by their commitment to transparency across the project. This model works well for them, especially around sponsorship, when people are transparent about their motives and objectives (what they're looking to get out of their involvement in the project) because it is clear how decisions are made.
Thanks for re-upping the Apache model of software collaboration, this is great.
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
Sponsorship Policy and Procedures
Policy
The NixOS Foundation's sponsorship policy is meant to enable clear, quick, and fair determination of allowed sponsorship without requiring extensive debate or uncertainty.
Nevertheless, the Foundation retains the right to decline sponsorship by a Board vote in cases where it would hinder the Foundation's mission.
Projects, Teams, and Events funded by the NixOS Foundation may extend upon this policy in written form as part of the request for funding.
Sponsors must be individuals or organizations that are legal to operate in and comply with the laws and policies of; their own origin, that of the NixOS Foundation, and of relevant third-party agreements.
Sponsorship links, material, and content must be safe for minors and work environments and should be a home page or content related to the Foundation's mission.
Adapted from:
apache.org
Procedures
- A Sponsor Chair will submit sponsorship proposals to the XXXXXX by email.
- XXXXXX members shall be provided at least 1 week to submit an objection and at least 2 weeks prior to the event to the NixOS Foundation Board by e-mail. Objections should be specific to the sponsor and cite relevant reasons why the sponsorship would impede the NixOS mission. With at least two (2) objections, the sponsor will be submitted to a general vote by the XXXXXX.
- Voting for sponsors is performed by a ballot containing the objections, and will vote to Accept or Decline. A sponsor will be accepted unless a majority (>50%) of the XXXXXX votes and a majority of the non-blank votes decline the sponsor, or a quorum is not reached and the Foundation board declines the sponsor.
- Sponsor Chairs provide the sponsor with a summary of the relevant XXXXX deliberations.
TODO: what is "XXXXXXX"? In the FAccT policy this is the "Steering Committee".
Adapted from:
Discussion
I've collected the policy proposals that looked reasoned and relevant below and incorporated them into the above Sponsorship Policy and Procedures. I am a bit hesitant to impose too much policy or procedure, as our culture does not yet have a lot of either, and imposing a large amount in one sector is imbalanced.
After some more discussion about the procedure and resoling the XXXXXX above, I intend to submit a proper PR and proceed with the remaining steps outline in the opening of this issue.
Proposal regarding ACM FAccT (by: @cleeyv)
This is clearest procedural explanation of sponsorship approval/disapproval procedure proposed so far. The above proposal is an adaption, but there is the open question of how to fill the roles of the "Executive Committee" (likely the Board) and the "Steering Committee". Otherwise the procedures seem non-controversial. The policy portion references a set of principles and a Strategic Plan that we lack. I will re-emphasize the importance of writing such things down.
The closest organization we have to a "steering committee" would be the Nix Teams Representatives meeting by the various leads. The Board can fill both roles until it is determined if the Representatives group is adequate.
Proposal regarding procedures and additional policy (by: @piegames)
The marketing team and the event organization team are mainly responsible for finding adequate sponsors. They may delegate that task.
Sponsorship candidates must be published two weeks before the sponsorship going live (i.e. start of the event) for community consideration.
A declared time period is reasonable (added this to the above ^^^). This is also similar to ACM FAccT. There is also the concept of "lazy consensus" that basically encapsulates what occurred with last interim policy proposal.
The event organization team, the marketing team, the Foundation board and maybe also the moderation team are allowed to reject any sponsor each.
Our equivalent to what is often called a "steering committee" could be the Nix team representatives group. As mentioned in the ACM FAccT example, it is best to have at least 2 objections required (similar to Robert's Rules, Martha's Rules, C3L rules, FSF); this cuts down on arbitrary blockages. ACM also requires written communications and has a more clear policy, therefore I am leaning toward adopting their procedures. In the current situation, the proposed procedure would likely have resulted in the same determinations by Marketing, Event and Board. And to help clarify the events; the Board and Event team was notified and given a time to decide and respond. The Marketing team was notified, but not asked to provide a determination. The Moderation team was not notified.
Sponsorship of a company, by design, includes advertising for that company. Therefore, donations by a company (which are not tied to publicity) are a different topic of discussion and out of scope.
This statement needs clarification. Many do not see sponsorship and advertising as the same thing. Even if the word "advertising" is correct, organizations are not perceived to be endorsing products or companies, only to be acknowledging the sponsorship. As an example, see FSF is clear that they only appreciate the support, but do not endorse the patrons.
Companies that are heavily or primarily involved in military, defense, intelligence or weapons manufacturing are not allowed to become a sponsor.
Huawei has been quite controversial regarding its ties to intelligence, yet has continued to provide acknowledged support by FOSDEM. https://fosdem.org/2024/about/sponsors/. Are these ties enough to warrant rejection by Nix as a sponsor? The cleanest way to consider these situations is not to try to decide ourselves; we are not experts in such matters and defer complication as much as possible to groups that specialize in determining this. For issues related to military; there are entire organizations around the world that publish such lists. A policy is meant to clarify, not re-ignite debate over the meanings of words in each case, thus it is best to defer to a third-party assessment. A proposal including such a baseline would be much more productive and avoid controversy.
No matter what, Anduril is out as a sponsor
This is begging the question and is clearly a contested position. Let's defer this; I am looking for policy that could have broad agreement in order to increase the chance of acceptance and provide a way forward for all.
Proposal regarding companies without advertising (by: @piegames)
My proposal for a policy about employees whose companies we do not want to advertise for (regardless of what the rules for that will turn out to be):
...
Is this meant to apply to the benefits of sponsorship (or rather the reduction of those benefits), or applied to a company regardless of sponsorship? If you mean the former, this is a quite convoluted way to include them, but by treating them differently than others - forbidden by policies such as postgres. If you mean the latter then this set of suggestions would be the sort that would be for something that is so offensive that the mere sight of the logo is not tolerated and would result in physical enforcement at a venue.
They are welcome to attend any events as community members.... Customized rules and exceptions ....
A community member had declared they would personally cover up logos they disliked at an upcoming event [1]; this is clearly threatening and is not welcoming behavior. Community members will find it difficult to feel welcome when they are under special restrictions or not protected by the CoC. Again, if the logo / t-shirts / recruitment is so offensive, this needs to be as clear as possible without complications that would be confusing to many who are not intimately involved. In the current situation, this half-measure did de-facto end up being implemented, partly due to missing the timeline for printing t-shirts + various materials; this did not seem to alleviate the objections.
...
The distinction being made in this proposal seems to be under the impression that a logo is indicative of endorsement by the NixOS community. We are a diverse community, we often have competitors simultaneously sponsor, and an implied endorsement is not how such sponsorships are perceived. There is no implication of endorsement for either sponsorship nor advertising in general; there are many examples of this "While the OSI is very grateful for their support, the OSI does not endorse these or any other companies." https://opensource.org/sponsors Or "The FSF does not endorse the activities of its patrons, but sincerely appreciates all their support.", FSF. Making this more clear on our sponsorship pages may alleviate this concern. Proposal: add a similar statement to the relevant pages.
cc @piegamesde since piegames is another github user.
Let me start by saying that my primary motivation is to minimize PR damage and workload for the involved individuals. I hope that the things I say will make more sense when viewed through that lens.
- Having a declared time frame for vetting sponsorship candidates is a good thing, however I think that this discussion should explicitly happen in public and with community involvement. I do not ever want to run into the situation again where people only learn about sponsors after the fact, when it's too late to change anything.
- I'll admit that this alone does not define a consensus seeking mechanism, or that the community should decide in some way. The point of this is merely to move the discussion into the decision process, instead of having lengthy community discussions long after the ship has sailed.
- Sponsorships usually come with publicity perks in return for the money. This is a form of advertisement. Whether or not a single individual perceives this as endorsement of that company is irrelevant given that clearly a lot of other people do, which is sufficient to cause significant PR damage. Having a cop-out statement about not endorsing patrons has little effect on this.
- Anduril is out a sponsor. Write it down into a policy or not, does not matter, the fact is that this is heavily burned ground and even suggesting another Anduril sponsorship would be foolish and detrimental to the community. This has nothing to do with moral judgement of the company itself.
- Similarly about the point regarding general rules about military-adjacent companies. This is not about making ethical judgements or something, or trying to weigh one form of military involvement against each other. There is also no real need to make "just" or "fair" decisions against some rules, or to delegate answering these questions by some experts. This all does not matter from a PR perspective to me. The only motivation to write this down into the policy in the first place is that being able to cut certain debates short will reduce the workload for involved members.
About my proposal for individuals at conferences, it feels like you fundamentally misunderstood it, however I fail to point down the exact misunderstanding so I cannot clarify what exactly I meant.
That being said, let me draft up something:
Advertisement policy
- Purpose. The NixOS project regularly advertises for some companies, giving them various levels of publicity. This implies at least some level of endorsement of such companies, and as such negative publicity of these companies may reflect badly on the project itself. This policy is meant to protect us from potential backlash and negative PR caused by these.
- Scope. This policy applies to all sponsorships at official NixOS events. This includes event sponsors, but also companies giving talks, having booths, etc. This policy also applies to sponsorship messages in Nixpkgs itself or other official resources like documentation and home page.
- Rules for sponsors and advertisers. The list of rules may be expanded or adapted in the future as deemed necessary to reflect the current decision process.
3.1 Sponsors must be individuals or organizations that are legal to operate in and comply with the laws and policies of; their own origin, that of the NixOS Foundation, and of relevant third-party agreements.
3.2 Sponsorship links, material, and content must be safe for minors and work environments and should be a home page or content related to the Foundation's mission.
3.3. Event organizers may impose additional rules for event sponsorships, for example setting a theme or requiring a certain local affiliation.
3.4. If want to rule out certain kinds of companies out of principle, put that here - Procedures
4.1. Procedures for advertising at events. Companies which want any form of public presence at an event (which includes official conference sponsorship) must apply for this to the organizers of the event (or a designated ambassador) beforehand for approval. Applications will be published for community review at least two weeks before the event, with a review period of at least one week. After the review period, the following groups form a decision on the application, while taking community feedback into account: The event organizers, the Foundation board, the Marketing team[, the Moderation team].
4.2. Other procedures. TODO - Rejected company applications.
5.1. A rejected application merely expresses that the company is not a good fit for the community or that particular event, or that the proposed deal was not satisfactory. This is not a moral judgement of the company itself.
5.2. Employees of rejected companies must be welcomed as community members in the community and at events, as long as they drop all public affiliation with their employer within these spaces.
5.3. Insert the rest of https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixcon-na-2024-is-getting-sponsored-by-anduril-what-to-do-about-it/41258/17. This could be fleshed out in here or somewhere else, should there be a better place to write these down
Discussion
- Note that the scope is slightly larger than just event sponsorships. We could restrict it again if we wanted to, but I think that covering these cases does not cost much while potentially saving us from future pain.
- I've deliberately given no specific executive power to the community feedback, since we currently do not have any procedures for establishing consensus in these situations. It is still up to selected teams to make a decision as representatives of the community.
- I've left out Anduril and MIC sponsorships except for a placeholder. I care much more about having robust procedures than getting that statement in.
- My proposal is under-specified on procedures for non-conference sponsorships, like mentioning the employers of team members on the home page. Not sure if this needs to be finalized right now though
- My proposal is written from the perspective of protecting the community. I think that from a sponsor perspective, some more accommodations and guarantees could be made. This mostly resolves around clear communication and properly setting expectations, but feel free to propose procedures to improve this.
the following groups form a decision on the application, while taking community feedback into account: The event organizers, the Foundation board, the Marketing team[, the Moderation team].
per its duty, the Moderation team is necessarily exposed to a fairly diverse sampling of the NixOS community, and succeeds or fails based on (among other things) its ability to make decisions in line with that. sponsorship is evidently entwined with community (as we're learning), so assuming the team-based process described above, there's definitely a case to be made for including the Moderation team.
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2024-03-19-nixcon-2024-preparation-meeting/41837/1
Considering sponsorship to be advertisement is misleading and a possible legal risk.
I'm going to narrow it down to a single topic that needs to be resolved before a consensus can be reached: advertisement / sponsorship / endorsement confusion. This perception is at the core of why this matters so much to people and why it is the subject of so much debate and contention. I am responding to the sentiment expressed in various discussions that can be summarized as quoting from above:
Sponsorships usually come with publicity perks in return for the money. This is a form of advertisement. Whether or not a single individual perceives this as endorsement of that company is irrelevant given that clearly a lot of other people do, which is sufficient to cause significant PR damage. Having a cop-out statement about not endorsing patrons has little effect on this.
Purpose. The NixOS project regularly advertises for some companies, giving them various levels of publicity. This implies at least some level of endorsement of such companies
Rules for sponsors and advertisers....
This positioning and perception is incorrect and needs to stop. Policy proposals that take this view as a starting point should to be reconsidered. Up till now I've only suggested that it is wrong, but I will be more direct now.
Precedence
Above in the issue, I listed several examples where conference sponsorship is not viewed as advertisement and instead as acknowledgement. I got bored with adding more examples. I did not find an example of a blacklist, only occasional carve-outs for things related to minors, gambling or otherwise regulated by law.
- apache.org
- ACM FAccT
- postgres
- https://opensource.org/sponsors
- FSF
- FOSDEM
- https://www.opencon.community/sponsorship_policies
- https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/SponsorshipLevels/
Legal
(IANAL, this is not legal advice, plus any other caveats needed to avoid this being viewed as legal advice)
Conference sponsorship should not be considered advertisement due to tax regulations regarding non-profits.
-
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/advertising-or-qualified-sponsorship-payments
- Clearly does not allow advertising or endorsement. There is clear "Advertising does not include acknowledgements." and "The effect of an acknowledgement is identification of the sponsor...".
- "Substantial return benefit is defined Treas. Reg. 1.513-4(c)(2)(ii) as any benefit other than a use or acknowledgement (explained below) or disregarded benefits..... not more than 2% of the amount of the payment"
- there are clear exceptions for the sorts of things we often see at conferences: logos, slogans, service listings, addresses. This is very likely exactly why we see these things at conferences, and not other things.
- The section about tips to auditors asks them to determine if there is endorsement.
-
https://www.501c3.org/kb/advertising-revenue-vs-sponsorship-income/
- also clarifies that advertisement is distinct
-
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2021/693439/IPOL_STU(2021)693439_EN.pdf
- states that sponsors during events must only receive "goods of modest value"
-
- "If the message has no character of commendation, it is not considered advertising."
I did not find a clear explanations of this in EU law, but several resources which suggest that this distinction legally matters. Every document has a similar tone, that sponsorship is distinct, with exceptions specifically enumerated out to allow what we normally see at conferences and events - often strictly prohibiting any endorsement.
- http://www.dutchcivillaw.com/legislation/dcctitle6633.htm#193a
- defines commercial practice
Other
and ... every ... example... I could find makes these distinctions. I've not found an example of someone recommending that non-profits should view conference sponsorship as advertisement.
- https://openeducationconference.org/about/sponsorship-policy : forbids anonymous sponsorship, no endorsement
- https://www.usenix.org/conferences/sponsorship-policy : no approval of donor values or actions
Conclusion
Creating an "Advertisement policy" and discussing/designing our policy while thinking that the value provided to sponsors rises to the level of becoming an advertisement creates a risk to the non-profit status of the NixOS Foundation in both the US and Netherlands. After doing some research, I am even more vehement in my objection to this viewpoint. In online research and asking every organization I could find at SCALE, I've not found an example of this viewpoint being held by a technology-driven open-source community. If people have this conception, and if large amount of the NixOS community has this conception, that in and of itself needs to be resolved.
I understand that some people may think sponsorship provides substantial value or endorsement or advertisement; but the precedent for this view has not been established, there have been no comparable organizations given as examples who hold this view, and there are many reasons to think that view is simply incorrect. This view also leads to debate and division. Neither the Foundation Board, nor the people debating and deciding on the relevant policy should hold this view, as it then becomes much harder to simultaneously claim in any audit that the policy strictly refers to non-advertisement and/or benefits of little value. We should also discourage this view as it sets a precedent that we do consider sponsorship an endorsement, leading to further debate about it.
From the open letter:
You do not want to see the NixOS community become vehicle for advertising the Military Industrial Complex.
I can completely agree and will extend it further. We should not become a vehicle for advertising in any way whatsoever. Instead, we should be advertising and celebrating Nix.
I understand that some people may think sponsorship provides substantial value or endorsement or advertisement; [...] there are many reasons to think that view is simply incorrect.
there's a litmus test for this: if sponsorship provides no value beyond that of an anonymous donation, then we could resolve this trivially by removing all sponsorship and allowing only anonymous donations. if that's not an acceptable resolution, then the value provided by sponsorship is, evidently, significant.
(edit: this is not policy recommendation. just trying to establish some ground truths.)
@tomberek you've drilled down on a meaningless technical distinction (acknowledgement vs. advertisement - which are basically the same thing to the untrained eye) and completely missed the point in the process.
- Do a s/advertisement/acknowledgment/ everywhere if you want and you feel it's more legally appropriate. Whatever. I'm opposed to Anduril being acknowledged as a sponsor, if that clarifies the point people are making.
- Endorsement is barely relevant because people would be opposed to an Anduril sponsorship even if the foundation / event organizers said "we don't endorse the sponsors". For multiple reasons: it feels fake, an acknowledgment is implicitly an endorsement that the sponsor at least meets a minimal threshold, and people don't want the name of the sponsors associated with the foundation or events at all.
- "I did not find an example of a blacklist, only occasional carve-outs for things related to minors, gambling or otherwise regulated by law." you did find examples of a blacklist, in fact you're even listing the blacklists in the same sentence. Additionally, the NixOS Foundation has no obligation to follow these precedents, and you haven't provided any reason to.
- Many foundations and projects also don't feel the need to explicitly list policies with blacklists because they have better community representation in the deciding bodies which don't need laws to be carved in stone to do the right thing. In fact, this would be my preferred solution as well, the only reason why having a policy is load bearing here is because the Foundation has, in fact, not been doing the right thing from many community members' perspective. So you're seeing a great deal of selection bias in your searches that you don't seem to be acknowledging.
I think I've made my motivations on this subject fairly clear. Therefore it frustrates me a lot that none of my central points got even acknowledged. I am convinced that we could find a way to word a policy in such a way that would address all your technical criticisms of my proposal as long as we actually agree on the high-level goals of such a policy. But simply saying "no you're wrong" (and arguing why you're right) without trying to understand why I stated this is not a productive way to discuss this.
- ... s/advertisement/acknowledgment/ everywhere ...
@delroth Thank you, please also ensure this is done in the rhetoric, proposed policies, and in the open letter. I believe it would make them more honest about what is being asked for. I'll keep merging the proposed policies with this in mind as well.
...meaningless technical distinction ...
I took the time to look into this, not knowing what I would find; this took time and energy that would be better used elsewhere. I compiled a non-trivial list of precedence and references showing that this is not just a technical distinction; but one that matters. This might be selection bias; but it would take some similarly relevant examples to convince me of that. The examples are of similar types of organizations, software focused, interested in FOSS principles who have had time to figure this out. The legal examples clearly show this is non-trivial, with real consequences. Are you willing to take legal responsibility for making your statements, procuring sponsorship for the organization and for future events, and then standing up to an audit? I am.
Therefore it frustrates me a lot that none of my central points got even acknowledged.
I was directly addressing one of your central points and assumptions, referencing it, then doing a large amount of learning about it, exploring how others think about the topic, and then trying to adapt it to ourselves. This assumption is a large piece of your "why". And as I write this, I'm noticing that my post is a direct discussion about your stated Purpose. This is not a technical line-by-line criticism, but about the high-level thinking. The line-by-line is below.
We do seem to be converging to a written policy. That is promising. A diff from your proposal with comments inline as the board meeting is right now asking for what the fine tuning should be.
- Advertisement policy
+ Sponsorship policy
- 1. Purpose. The NixOS project regularly advertises for some companies,
- giving them various levels of publicity.
- This implies at least some level of endorsement of such companies,
- and as such negative publicity of these companies may reflect badly on the project itself.
- This policy is meant to protect us from potential backlash
- and negative PR caused by these.
+ 1. Purpose. This policy is meant to enable clear, quick, and fair determination
+ of proposed sponsorship without requiring extensive debate or uncertainty.
+ Nevertheless, the Foundation retains the right to decline sponsorship
+ by a Board vote in cases where it would hinder the Foundation's mission.
# For reasons specified, this rationale is not appropriate and potentially a risk.
# Including the ASF-provided purpose, it contains the idea of reducing debate and conflict.
2. Scope. This policy applies to
all sponsorships at official NixOS events.
This includes event sponsors,
but also companies giving talks, having booths, etc.
This policy also applies to sponsorship messages in Nixpkgs itself
or other official resources like documentation and home page.
- 3. Rules for sponsors and advertisers.
+ 3. Rules for sponsors.
# Same reason as above.
The list of rules may be expanded or adapted in the future
as deemed necessary to reflect the current decision process
3.1 Sponsors must be
individuals or organizations that are legal to operate in
and comply with the laws and policies of; their own origin,
that of the NixOS Foundation,
and of relevant third-party agreements.
3.2 Sponsorship links, material, and content must be safe for minors
and work environments
and should be a home page
or content related to the Foundation's mission.
3.3. Event organizers may impose additional rules for event sponsorships,
for example setting a theme or requiring a certain local affiliation.
- 3.4. If want to rule out certain kinds of companies out of principle, put that here
# Presumably, a MIC clause would be proposed here.
# What principles? Later on we say this decision is not a "moral judgement".
4. Procedures
- 4.1. Procedures for advertising at events.
+ 4.1. Procedures for sponsorship at events.
# building upon the ACM FaaCT procedures
# which are more clear than proposed section 4+5
# "the following groups form a decision", unclear how
A Sponsor Chair will submit sponsorship proposals to the
- XXXXXX by email.
+ Selection Committee by email;
the event organizers, the Foundation board, the Marketing team[, the Moderation team].
- XXXXXX members shall be
+ 4.2 Selection Committee members shall be notified
at least 2 weeks prior to the event
and provided at least 1 week to submit an objection
to the Foundation Board by e-mail.
4.3 Objections should be specific to the sponsor
and cite relevant reasons
23why the sponsorship would impede the NixOS mission.
With at least two (2) objections,
the sponsor will be submitted to a general vote
- by the XXXXXX.
+ by the Selection Committee.
4.4 A sponsor will be accepted unless
4.4.a a majority (>50%) of the Selection Committee votes
and a majority of the non-blank votes decline the sponsor,
4.4.b or a quorum is not reached
and the Foundation Board declines the sponsor.
-Sponsor Chairs provide the sponsor with a summary of the relevant XXXXX deliberations.
+ 4.5 Sponsor Organizer will provide the sponsor with
+ a summary of the relevant Selection Committee deliberations.
# ACM FAccT requires deliberation disclosure.
# I came across this concept a few times,
# and it is interesting and worth considering.
# Otherwise, simpler to provide no reason.
- 5. Rejected company applications.
- 5.1. A rejected application merely expresses that the company is not a good fit for the community
- or that particular event, or that the proposed deal was not satisfactory.
- This is not a moral judgement of the company itself.
# This is not honest unless we disallow moral considerations for the objections.
# Or reveal the deliberations.
- 5.2. Employees of rejected companies must be welcomed as community members
- in the community and at events,
- as long as they drop all public affiliation with their employer within these spaces.
# This means that a company proposing sponsorship
# and being rejected
# would mean their employees would be more constrained than that of
# a company didn't apply and
# just showed up with conspicuous public affiliation. WAT?
- 5.3. Insert the rest of https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixcon-na-2024-is-getting-sponsored-by-anduril-what-to-do-about-it/41258/17. This could be fleshed out in here or somewhere else, should there be a better place to write these down
# The proposed section re-iterates advertisement and publicity
# and is quite difficult to reconcile with the "not a moral judgment" clause.Open questions for discussion:
- Selection Committee members?
- Disclosure/no-disclosure of rejected sponsorship applications
@tomberek's proposal looks good to me. The main open issue is to define what the "selection committee" is. E.g. is that a standing committee, or a committee associated with a particular event? If the latter, shouldn't sponsor acceptance simply be a task of the event organizing committee (since 3.3 states that they may impose additional restrictions)?
For the record, I'm opposed to any project-wide policy banning entire industries (such as the defense sector) from sponsoring. However, since events are organized by volunteers rather than by the foundation, it's appropriate that the organizers can impose additional restrictions.
This might be selection bias; but it would take some similarly relevant examples to convince me of that. The examples are of similar types of organizations, software focused, interested in FOSS principles who have had time to figure this out.
To be clear, I can confirm that the examples you've listed are of organizations that view sponsorship as acknowledgment not advertising nor endorsement. I think that's uncontroversial, thank you for clarifying which exact word should be used here in a US context (which isn't particularly relevant to an NL foundation, fwiw - and the nature of the transaction and the returns for the sponsor likely matter significantly more than the choice of english word used to describe the transaction).
Your example links to organizations however don't show anything else than that. Specifically, they don't show:
- The non-existence of blacklist criteria. For example, OpenCon (from your list) specifically bans journal publishers that aren't pushing for open access.
- The non-existence of arbitrary/unknown decision criteria. For example, the ASF (also from your list) says in their policy "the Foundation reserves the right to decline any sponsor without providing a reason and at our sole discretion".
- The non-existence of a community objection process. For example, ACM FAccT (also also from your list) describes a fairly tight process for pre-announcing sponsors and putting them to a vote in case of objections.
I don't need to find other examples because your own examples don't support anything other than the original argument in your post, aka. that we should be saying "acknowledgment" and not "advertisement".
recapping, the impetus for this thread seems
the controversy around NixCon 2023
.. in which a significant portion of community members objected to MIC sponsorship.
@tomberek proposes to address this using a policy that lets some people file formal objections if a sponsorship were to
impede the NixOS mission
.. which is
to support the Nix ecosystem's infrastructure, and projects implementing the purely functional deployment model
however, the Anduril controversy wasn't caused because we failed to act in line with the NixOS foundation's mission - it was caused by a decision in line with the foundation's mission.
in other words, the problem at hand here isn't about enforcing the formalized mission (which did happen here as-is without us having implemented said proposal), but about the disconnect between the foundation's goal and the community it depends on.
on the topic at hand a solution might therefore look like a feedback process that would (aside from the current narrow mission) additionally take into account sentiment in the community, i.e. at least be less stringent than to
cite relevant reasons why the sponsorship would impede the NixOS mission
.. if not take into account feedback from a broader part of the community than @tomberek's proposed Board + Nix Teams Representatives.
tackling the cause behind the community uproar tho, i.e. this gap between the foundation goals vs the nix community, would likely involve reevaluating the goals of the foundation itself, such as to at least better take into account its community, if not whatever the community felt went wrong here more broadly.
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/open-board-call-2024-03-20/41898/1
This is not honest unless we disallow moral considerations for the objections.
This is not a contradiction in my opinion. The distinction is whether this is a decision about the company itself or the company as a sponsor. What I want to state is that even when a company is not deemed a good fit as a sponsor due to ethical/moral concerns, this is not a judgement about the company itself.
Take gambling as an example. I don't mind gambling per se, but I'd have heavy ethical concerns about being sponsored by them. (This is not a constructed example btw, think about any high-profile Twitch streamer.) I want a policy to acknowledge that fact. Especially since many people may feel the same about military sponsorships.
The main open issue is to define what the "selection committee" is. E.g. is that a standing committee, or a committee associated with a particular event? If the latter, shouldn't sponsor acceptance simply be a task of the event organizing committee (since 3.3 states that they may impose additional restrictions)?
The committee should be composed of the organizers of the conference or meeting. In general it should be policy to push as much decision making down to the conference organizers so that they can put on a conference that fits the needs of their local users and community
Anything further will be a significant burden on the organizers and letting "the community" at large make decisions such as these will ensure that there are no corporate sponsors in the future.
All the framing of language of "the community" make it seem as if the community is a monolith, which it certainly is not.
It would also be nice to specify how far "sponsorship" goes. What if a company wants to provide a User Group space to meet?
I have to echo @paperdigits comment (#110 (comment)).
The organizers of Nix related conferences (e.g. NixCon) or gatherings, should be given sole discretionary power to decide who to (or to not) let sponsor their event. They put in the effort; they get to decide. They have their own morals to contend with and can make decisions that are in line with their culture.
As the project grows, I cannot imagine that their would be a centralized committee that could understand the needs and cultures from groups around the world. I cannot imagine that a centralized group could make decisions that do not trample on the morals and cultures of other people. And overall, I don't think it is the business or place of any one person or group of persons to unilaterally and without recourse dictate what someone on the other side of the planet is or is not allowed to do.
The Nix community is not a monolith. We are all sub-communities with our own beliefs, cultures, and morals. Let us let each other be and live how we see fit.
From my impression of the open board call (see the meeting notes) there was a strong consensus for having some kind of Selection Committee to oversee the sponsor selection process in some way. There was no consensus on who exactly should be part of that Selection Committee, and there was also no consensus on whether or not the sponsorship candidates should be discussed in public for community feedback or not (although I felt like most people were leaning towards no).
I don't think that the "just let the organizers decide this alone" stance has a realistic standing at the moment, nor would I deem it appropriate to solve the problems we are trying to solve.
nix con and nix con NA are not meetings of local user groups or anything, they’re very much representative (at least perceived as such) of the nixos foundation and also the nix community, nobody ever talked about pushing regulation on local user group meet-ups, as far as I’m aware?
Regardless of what consensus was achieved during the call, not everyone who has and wanted to voice their opinion was able to attend the call. Since the call is infrequent and this issue is the ongoing manifestation of what happened in that call, it is an ideal place for community members who were not able to attend to voice their opinions.
however, the Anduril controversy wasn't caused because we failed to act in line with the NixOS foundation's mission - it was caused by a decision in line with the foundation's mission.
Yes, this was my main concern and reason for tracking down the status of NixOS sponsorship.
It seems that the diff below:
- 1. Purpose. The NixOS project regularly advertises for some companies,
- giving them various levels of publicity.
- This implies at least some level of endorsement of such companies,
- and as such negative publicity of these companies may reflect badly on the project itself.
- This policy is meant to protect us from potential backlash
- and negative PR caused by these.
+ 1. Purpose. This policy is meant to enable clear, quick, and fair determination
+ of proposed sponsorship without requiring extensive debate or uncertainty.
+ Nevertheless, the Foundation retains the right to decline sponsorship
+ by a Board vote in cases where it would hinder the Foundation's mission.The old version would have likely have excluded Anduril.
The new version would never exlude Anduril unless there is some way the proposed committee saw Anduril would hinder the foundations mission.
Now I understand the point here isn't to deal with concrete examples, but instead a policy to apply to all of these.
But what use is a policy that just results in the same action much of the community felt was an issue?
Apologies if I'm missing anything or I'm misinterpreting anything, but this is what I'm concluding from the information I have.
If we have to revert consensus from the open board call which was built to build consensus and pass on a policy, we really need to find a way to have a call and rehash things over.
We really need decisive policymaking here, and we cannot reopen the box all the time, otherwise, this makes us unable to decide on something.
If people feel strongly on the current trajectory for the policy suggested, I can advise multiple options:
-
Bringing up a new open board call about this to make decisive progress on this, i.e. pass a policy. For this to be efficient, someone has to work out on a new policy and propose it, I am afraid that in our current time/energy levels, we cannot afford to discuss over non-existent "almost complete" policy proposals, everything can always be finetuned.
-
The new policy applies to gatherings under the control of the Foundation and any gathering that is not so interested into that policy can operate outside this framework of policies, to be precise, this has relation with the NixCon project lead team and the team is onboard with the current trajectory FWIW.
And thus, this does not cause any damage to local gathering that does not possess the NixCon branding. There's a larger question regarding the funding relation between the Foundation and local events, but I would postpone this question and focus only the policy on larger gatherings if that's OK. It's quite rare that local events gets sponsored (and if they do, they would probably don't need the Foundation funding).
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixcon-2023-sponsorship-situation-from-the-nixos-foundation/33583/118
I guess it is time for an update. Regarding the open questions;
Selection Committee
There are a few comments around the sentiment that event organizers should be able to make broad decisions.
...a task of the event organizing committee...
composed of the organizers of the conference or meeting ... push as much decision making down to the conference organizers...
The organizers of Nix related conferences ... should be given sole discretionary power to decide ...
There is a response clarifying that the consensus was for there to be an oversight mechanism.
strong consensus for having some kind of Selection Committee to oversee the sponsor selection process in some way
The ACM FaaCT approach has more structure than we've imposed in any other portion of the ecosystem. Most examples of policy seen in other organizations do have some oversight, and it tends to be the party responsible for finances and administration. Updating the proposal to remove a layer of indirection and have the organizers be the first check on ensuring a proposal is in-line with local considerations, and then the Board to apply global considerations in a bicameral fashion. This allows either group to reject a sponsor. The time-frame does seem tight, add another week?
A Sponsor Chair will submit sponsorship proposals to the
Selection Committee by email;
- the event organizers, the Foundation board, the Marketing team[, the Moderation team].
+ the event organizers, and the Foundation Board
4.2 Selection Committee members shall be notified
at least 2 weeks prior to the event
and provided at least 1 week to submit an objection
to the Foundation Board by e-mail.
4.3 Objections should be specific to the sponsor
and cite relevant reasons
why the sponsorship would impede the NixOS mission.
With at least two (2) objections,
the sponsor will be submitted to a general vote
by the Selection Committee.
4.4 A sponsor will be accepted unless
- 4.4.a a majority (>50%) of the Selection Committee votes
- and a majority of the non-blank votes decline the sponsor,
- 4.4.b or a quorum is not reached
- and the Foundation Board declines the sponsor.
+ 4.4.a a majority (>50%) of the event organizers vote to decline the sponsor, or
+ 4.4.b a majority (>50%) of the Foundation Board vote to decline the sponsor,This adds a great deal of simplicity, provides two opportunities of oversight over an individual soliciting sponsorships, allows local organizers to self-determine, and gives the Board in its role as community representation the final veto. After some consideration, I've removed the extra two teams. The Marketing Team can veto simply via inaction for their area of responsibility, leaving event marketing up to event organizers. For @uninsane's proposal regarding the Moderation team being exposed to a diverse sampling of the community - every team should be exposed to and consist of a diverse sampling. Regarding responsibilities, the Marketing Team has a direct responsibility to spread a message about upcoming events, but this does not rise to the level of creating an authority over said events. The Moderation Team has a responsibility to keep discussions civil, but that does not create authority over those topics.
Disclosure/Non-disclosure
There was no follow-up about the disclosure/no-disclosure section. I think this is a far more interesting question, but likely not critical at the moment.
Other
@piegamesde brings up the concept of having ethical concerns about the source of sponsorship, eg: gambling. Some of these considerations are often part of local laws and venue policies. For example; gambling policy has extensive precedent in the EU, US, UK, especially in areas that are likely to involve minors. Additional constraints can also be applied at the local level. Applying an ethical standard to the entirety of Nix, official events, and the community needs to be its own discussion and proposal beyond the simpler mechanics outlined here.
I've also gotten a proposal to add a clause "..."in the moral limits of the community" to the Purpose section. Thoughts?
1. Purpose. This policy is meant to enable clear, quick, and fair determination
of proposed sponsorship without requiring extensive debate or uncertainty.
Nevertheless, the Foundation retains the right to decline sponsorship
by a Board vote in cases where it would hinder the Foundation's mission
+ or exceed the moral limits of the community.Regarding minimizing workload and PR damage; having a clear decision making process, required timelines, and a representative-style helps create a situation where not every decision is up for public debate. The proposal as it is will likely not make everyone happy, but is a step in the right direction to provide clarity and is a minimum that can be agreed upon.
The more I've looked at how other organizations decide what is official and what is not, the more I've been impressed by PostgreSQL. They have an approach that gives a great deal of leeway to event organizers, but impose strong requirements on notification; making each individual or attendee the decider. By ensuring people are informed, they can decide. This is the least authoritarian approach. I think these are worth reading through:
- https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/
- https://www.postgresql.org/about/sponsors/
- https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/conferences/
- https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/funds-group/
- https://momjian.us/main/blogs/pgblog/2023.html#September_11_2023
next steps
@RaitoBezarius recommended a new Board call to pass the policy; they would need a PR first. I'll write one up. To the board: is this on the right track? The other recommendation was to apply this policy specifically to NixCon, but not other gatherings.
Note: I am in full agreement with @KiaraGrouwstra's comment about "this gap between the foundation goals vs the nix community". Our stated goals need attention. I know this thread is not the best place for it, but this does need to be addressed.
or exceed the moral limits of the community.
I think this seems a little easy to accidentally misuse. It's a bit of a blank check that will let the community kind of arbitrarily pressure board members for things the community already has a hard time agreeing on, as long as it appears to exceed an unstated limit.
Our stated goals need attention. I know this thread is not the best place for it, but this does need to be addressed.
This is a reason this doesn't need to be addressed in the sponsor policy. Given @edolstra:
However, since events are organized by volunteers rather than by the foundation, it's appropriate that the organizers can impose additional restrictions.
It seems that the NixOS Foundation should act more of a facilitator for how to decide these things rather than an absolute authority, and the board should not really be voting on things that impact a single event.
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixcon-2024-preparation-meetings/41837/2
The Moderation Team has a responsibility to keep discussions civil, but that does not create authority over those topics.
i agree, in a narrow sense. to the degree which accepting a sponsor is seen as speaking on behalf of the community (and for many, it is: that's a big part of why we're having this discussion), then the authority to accept a sponsor is granted by the community. the rest is about how to balance that with all the other things, and people, which sponsorship impacts.
it's right to consider those immediately involved with the event as stakeholders in this, represented here by the Event Organizers. the community also needs representation. without that representation, the authority to speak for it does not exist. we could gamble on whether the Board will be seen as meeting that requirement (history says "sometimes; the Board serves many roles, sometimes competing, and community representation is just one of those"). or we could try to involve someone (or some team) specifically for the purpose of representing to the best of their ability the community, broadly, in this process. i feel more sure of that latter approach.
For @uninsane's proposal regarding the Moderation team being exposed to a diverse sampling of the community - every team should be exposed to and consist of a diverse sampling.
i disagree with what i think you're trying to imply here. i don't believe every team is equally fit to represent the broad, and sometimes internally-conflicted community. if i'm alone in that, then sure, the Board and Event Organizers are plenty. otherwise: if not the Moderation team, then who?
Nevertheless, the Foundation retains the right to decline sponsorship
by a Board vote in cases where it would hinder the Foundation's mission
or exceed the moral limits of the community.
i would say "values" instead of "moral limits" here. the terms overlap but "values" tends to be less divisive. i'd actually lean toward "ensuring the health of the community", but maybe that would be too watered down.
How does the Moderation Team represent the community? Does the community elect them? I'm not really familiar with Foundation process.
Empirically, the loosely organised collective of people behind the code ("Nix community") is a praxicracy: Whoever does the work and has access to the resources in question, can and usually does make the decisions. There are no formal processes for getting access. There is no meaningful notion of representation, because constituency is not well-defined: #71
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/update-on-sponsorship-policy-discussion/42704/1
This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/tweag-nix-dev-update-56/43035/1
This is now done in #136. For more context, please also read the discourse post. Thanks again for all your feedback, effort and patience.