[jsyang00]

The Anduril issue seems to have been the main catalyst for the drama. Seems like Anduril probably did more harm then good - who at Anduril couldn't have predicted that the Nix folks would start to have a major freakout the minute they attempted to sponsor?

[ParetoOptimal]

It's worse because after the first time much of the community was trying to write it off as a simple mistake or miscommunication.

It became evident after the second time though that this was very on purpose and it was known there would be an issue.

[jonringer117]

Well, the activity around changing the status quo was done in a github issue [1]. Which sat around for many months after proposing the Apache Software Foundation's sponsorship policy of "state of nexus". Which didn't give a basis in which to exclude Anduril from sponsoring again.

Obviously there's the "people were angry last time, they will likely be angry this time". But that's projecting personal/political views into a sponsorship.

What should have been the right course of action? I'm not sure. "Tech is easy, people are hard"

1: https://github.com/NixOS/foundation/issues/110

[jijijijij]

Well, you should know, since you have been involved with both Nix and Anduril, right?!

No MIC sponsoring would have been the right course of action. No matter your sympathies, or alliances in your case.

To even think of the sponsorship as a valid idea is US centric ignorance. Outside the US people don't get the "Thank you for your service" indoctrination and are way, way more reluctant to work with the MIC.

If you knew anything about Germany, the issue with the university host should not have surprised you at all. It's not some modern outrage of wokeism, it's a decades old academic foundation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_clause

It's hard to find a German university without: http://www.zivilklausel.de/index.php/bestehende-zivilklausel...

Losing VOC support, eh?! Have you been to a CCC event? MIC sponsorship of Nix would lose you more or less the entire German hacker scene, at the very least.

A national defense company sponsoring an international software project, not expecting uproar... I don't know what to say. It's beyond plausibly idiotic. Objectively, completely out of touch.

[someplaceguy]

> In particular the civil clause demands that members of the university reject research projects and funding which could serve weapon technology.

Wait, what? Are you saying German universities are forbidden from contributing to Nix/NixOS, which is used by Anduril?

Or say, the RISC-V ecosystem, which may be used as chips driving military weapons?

... or the Linux kernel? Heck, any OS at all?

[jijijijij]

Sponsorship with the attached advertisement is very different than "used by". Don't be silly.

Are you even aware, I am referencing the issue of a Nix conference hosted at a German university, or are you in political autopilot drive-by mode?

I linked a Wikipedia article, read it, if you're genuinely interested and not debating in bad faith.

[someplaceguy]

> Sponsorship with the attached advertisement is very different than "used by". Don't be silly.

Sure, but what does that have to do with the Civil clause that you mentioned? It doesn't say anything about sponsorship, but it does say about "used by": "Any participation of science and research with military use or purpose must be rejected". Obviously, this cannot be true, since it can be applied to anything that is used by the military, including paper, towels, pens, computers in general, water, etc.

> Are you even aware, I am referencing the issue of a Nix conference hosted at a German university

I am, and? I think you missed my point?

> I linked a Wikipedia article, read it, if you're genuinely interested and not debating in bad faith.

I did. The Civil clause of some universities does sound fine ("strive to", "focused on"), but the others make a blanket statement that is very hard to take seriously. Obviously, they don't take the statement to the letter, and in fact it's hard to tell what they aren't supposed to do (if anything), unless perhaps you look at the other universities. Even then, none of those clauses say anything that can be applied to hosting a conference with military sponsorship but not to contributing to Nix.

Regardless, I don't think what you linked to is well known outside Germany. You can judge by the extent and completeness of that Wikipedia article. I'm European (EU), went to a European (EU) university and I had never heard of such a clause.

To answer to your point:

> To even think of the sponsorship as a valid idea is US centric ignorance. Outside the US people don't get the "Thank you for your service" indoctrination and are way, way more reluctant to work with the MIC.

I think you're generalizing a wee bit too much -- I'm not from the US and I think there's plenty of indoctrination to go around, and yet I don't think rejecting this sponsorship is in accordance with open source and Free Software values, philosophy and spirit. You can go read about it here -- and notice how it says several times that the point is to include everyone: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

To be honest, I think the mistake with Nixcon was not Anduril, but rather, to host the conference at a German university.

[Cyph0n]

Because defense contractors typically think what they are doing is purely good and could in no way be thought of as being bad. A form of “reality-distortion field”.

[docandrew]

You could make the reverse argument - that the conference organizers think what defense contractors are doing is purely bad and could in no way be thought of as being good. Ultimately it’s up to _us_ (proxied through our elected officials) to use software tools for good or bad purposes, the creation of a tool in itself isn’t the problem. I think most defense contractors are keenly aware of the implications of their work.

[Cyph0n]

I suppose one could make any argument. At the end of the day, the onus is on the company making weapons to prove to the community that its weapons are used for “good” - whatever that means to the community in question.

Personally, I think accepting a sponsorship is a step too far: it’s an implicit admission that Nix is associated with the defense industry. Some communities are okay with this, but such a move will definitely alienate a good chunk of people. They and other defense companies should of course be allowed to participate in the community and contribute to Nix.

[bitfilped]

Anduril could have predicted this had they actually asked/engaged the community and not just Eelco.