Would like to add some needed context (at least I think it's needed):
* This started out because NixOS mastodon account posted on chaos.social local timeline which is rather German Mastodon instance with a strict no-military-content-without-content-warnings moderation policy. People got angry for NixOS posting about the sponsor there and started complaining en masse to drop it. I think most people complaining aren't affiliated with NixOS at all but I'm sure there were also attendees of the conference complaining on Mastodon.
* NixCon is a (compared to other open source conferences like kubecon) extremely small community conference, organised by volunteers who have been under immense pressure this week to pull off all the organisation whilst also having to handle this drama on Mastodon.
* We as a community should definitely discuss during the conference this weekend what we're gonna have as policies for sponsorship going forward. Because as far as I know we haven't had any real formal policies regarding NixCon organisation at all. It has always been kind of community-driven.
* This year the role of the NixOS foundation has been made way more clear in the NixOS community. Before it really was just an entity for receiving donations but it did not actively do anything community building. I'm happy that we have an active Foundation board now that isn't just an administrative formality but an actual voice that can make statements.
* NixOS foundation is having a board meeting today and will have a more clear statement later from what I understand
* I am looking forward to Nixcon this weekend despite this hiccup. And I'm sure we'll figure it out.
A key aspect is that we discovered very late that TU Dresden has their own policies against military association that we weren't aware of. We would have had to fill in ton of paperwork, and potentially lose the place.
This is what I tried to communicate to Anduril via email but it must have been lost in translation.
Maybe then tweet something to the effect of “we are extremely sorry, and we would love to continue having Anduril as sponsor and part of the community, but because of a screw up on our part, we didn’t realize we need to comply with venue requirements, so we need to drop Anduril just this single time”. Should be easy, no? That is, unless the TU Dresden policies is only a pretextual reason for this.
>whilst also having to handle this drama on Mastodon
What do you mean by "having to"? It is unreasonable to set a standard where every single complaint on social media deserves a reply. Either the sponsor is dropped or it is not -- where is the handling?
AI sentry towers on the US-Mexico border lends credence to Anduril's name from Lord of the Rings -- "the Flame of the West."
This is completely unrelated, but if you like weapons with cool names (or are looking for names for your next defense-industry startup) the Tolkien legendarium has many!
Angrist - the dagger that cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's iron crown. Means "Iron Cleaver" in Sindarin
Dagmor - "dark-slayer", Beren's short blade
Aranruth - The terrible sword of Thingol, King of Doriath. Means "King's Ire"
The twin bastard swords "Anglachel" and "Anguirel" -- Forged by Eol the Dark Elf from a meteor, these swords were both sort of malevolent and I think were probably inspired by the Norse Tyrfing. Probably also influenced Stormbringer and Mournblade in those terrible Moorcock books.
Celeg Aithorn - A legendary sword from the First Age. Reference to a Valar (God's) blade "lightning", and said to be the blade that will one day cleave the world.
Edit: Ack! I forgot my favorite. "Dramborleg" -- the axe that the man Tuor found during the Fall of Gondolin. He slew three balrogs (!) and many orc champions with it. Means "thudder-sharp", because it both smashes and cuts at the same time. ("smote both a heavy dint as of a club and cleft as a sword")
... that's enough. I know the posted tweet is a serious topic and what I have posted is not, but that's where I'm at today.
> AI sentry towers on the US-Mexico border lends credence to Anduril's name from Lord of the Rings -- "the Flame of the West."
So they hijacked a name from Tolkien's works and the Tolkien estate did nothing about it?
They threatened to sue TSR for using "hobbit" in D&D in the 70s [0], which prompted D&D authors to change the name to "halfling" and later on change their lore a bit.
Same goes with Palantir. No idea how the estate chooses what to go after.
"Hobbit" is rather central to the Tolkien brand; Palantir and Anduril are essentially props, so it could be that these were seen as less important instances of name-theivery.
What is the point? Getting some goodwill of non-paying users (aka. freeloaders), while (maybe) alienating paying users? I get that it is a project that uses lots of volunteer work, but you won't pay your hosting fees and buildfarms from latest rust helloworld-webservice flake contributions from the programmers-socks wearing community.
Sidenote: the foundation of current computing is built on DoD money.
I think you'll find they'll loose goodwill from some other non-paying folks. There are many people who code and use this technology who are pro-military. They may not speak up in the same circles as those who are against this but they exist. I'm only pointing this out to showcase the market is more diverse than people often realize.
also there is a silent majority, who does not have a special stance on lots of topics, just thinks like live and let live, and these kind of signalling are always a bad news for them (regardless of anti- or pro-something), as these useless drama-acts signal further polarization of the world, which often signal that some political takeover has happened in organizations which are not inherently political. This often signals a loss of focus for projects. (think GNU for example)
I wonder where that anti-military sentiment in U.S. tech stems from? At least in former Soviet bloc, we view your military in quite a positive light. Well, for sure in a more positive light than armies of competing 'superpowers'.
A bunch of people who grew up during the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions, or for older people Vietnam?
It's been a while since the US was in a war that we looked at afterward (or during, frankly) and said "yeah it was a good and smart thing we did that, worth the costs."
It's not anti-military, it's anti military suppliers who won't sell to civilians, even when there is no legal restriction preventing it.
H&K, Anduril, Boston Dynamics, are just a few examples of companies who have entire product lines inaccessible to me, a private citizen who is not military, LEO, or a contractor of either.
Anduril, in particular, rubs me the wrong way because Palmer Luckey talks a big game about being pro-liberty, but his company will only sell to the pigs.
> I wonder where that anti-military sentiment in U.S. tech stems from? At least in former Soviet bloc, we view your military in quite a positive light. Well, for sure in a more positive light than armies of competing 'superpowers'.
I'm not American, and to me it just seems like a very vocal minority is doing a lot of the talking on behalf of everyone else.
I say this as a Canadian (meaning - don't take my opinion on the US too seriously), but it's so strange to see what's happening to tech.
US Tech in the past: "we dislike the military, the government, the military-industrial complex (and generally all authority) because we skew hippy and/or libertarian. Let us be creative and free!"
US Tech today: "we dislike the military, the government, and the military-industrial complex because our particular flavour of cultural identity politics doesn't like it. Let us conform to the moral outrage of the day."
Meanwhile, the best reason IMO -- "we dislike the military, the government, the military-industrial complex because it serves the interests of the wealthy first and foremost (at the expense of the poor)" -- seems to get less discussion.
But all of these are reasons why tech can dislike the military or at least be uncomfortable with it, even while DARPA funding has helped progress tech and many innovations have come out of military-first applications.
As an American for the past 44 years my anecdotal experience has been the 3rd option you provided mixed with senseless war and death when someone is anti military.
Growing up in republican midwest and living in CA later I haven't met someone who just goes "military bad bc political party and moral outrage". I think that is just a twitter thing
Your US tech today characterization is likely a strawman; from what I see in left leaning spaces, opposition to US military is more along the lines of your best reason.
I don't see what's the difference between "we skew hippy and/or libertarian" and "our particular flavour of cultural identity politics". Hippy and libertarian is a particular flavor of cultural identity politics.
I'm not aware of any specific recent controversy, but the core concept of autonomous military equipment is extremely controversial. Bloomberg called them "Tech's Most Controversial Startup" a few years ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-03/tech-s-mo...
Palmer Luckey and Peter Thiel themselves are also quite controversial political actors.
By controversial you mean that they are conservative. I'm not aware of anything they've done that is particularly controversial; furthermore, if the standard for controversial is that a person has donated money to political candidates and organizations that would make a huge portion of big tech figures controversial.
I found the particular text of the sponsorship tweet rather shocking. "Software-defined conflicts" is a callously buzzy way to describe events involving mass loss of life.
People who push back on technology used at the border make little sense to me. Using technology frees up other resources to process migrants more quickly through the abused asylum process. That means they are in detention for less time, they get court cases quicker, and get asylum or removal quicker.
They dropped this company in anticipation of a future version of the CoC and sponsorship rules. Certainly, they have the right to define their rules, but they should revise the rules beforehand.
They’re not saying the company did anything wrong. Just deciding not to take their sponsorship money. I don’t think you should need to enact a new rule in order to decide not to accept money.
I don't think any non profit should ever refuse money. If they make money from something you disagree with, then taking that money and using it in the scope of your non-profit (which you agree with) is a moral imperative
Linux groups like this are an absolute joke at this point - it's beyond a circus of political / virtue signaling that's metastasized to a point that it's basically a net negative to anyone actually trying to contribute or learn...
I miss the early 2000's when hacker culture / defcon culture etc could exist on its on merits and wasn't coded by race, gender, politics or orientation...
i'd be curious to hear your experiences trying to contribute or learn about nixos with respect to this. what you're describing here i've never seen on the nixos PR or issue trackers, nor in the Matrix rooms. i don't spend much time on the nixos discourse though: are you having your threads derailed by ideological debate over there?
Readit News
* This started out because NixOS mastodon account posted on chaos.social local timeline which is rather German Mastodon instance with a strict no-military-content-without-content-warnings moderation policy. People got angry for NixOS posting about the sponsor there and started complaining en masse to drop it. I think most people complaining aren't affiliated with NixOS at all but I'm sure there were also attendees of the conference complaining on Mastodon.
* NixCon is a (compared to other open source conferences like kubecon) extremely small community conference, organised by volunteers who have been under immense pressure this week to pull off all the organisation whilst also having to handle this drama on Mastodon.
* We as a community should definitely discuss during the conference this weekend what we're gonna have as policies for sponsorship going forward. Because as far as I know we haven't had any real formal policies regarding NixCon organisation at all. It has always been kind of community-driven.
* This year the role of the NixOS foundation has been made way more clear in the NixOS community. Before it really was just an entity for receiving donations but it did not actively do anything community building. I'm happy that we have an active Foundation board now that isn't just an administrative formality but an actual voice that can make statements.
* NixOS foundation is having a board meeting today and will have a more clear statement later from what I understand
* I am looking forward to Nixcon this weekend despite this hiccup. And I'm sure we'll figure it out.
Edit:
Also for context a statement from the founder of Anduril: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1699590452847272044
This is what I tried to communicate to Anduril via email but it must have been lost in translation.
as said by a friend this morning:
> i, personally, would not accept money from the company actively militarizing the southern US border but that's just me
What do you mean by "having to"? It is unreasonable to set a standard where every single complaint on social media deserves a reply. Either the sponsor is dropped or it is not -- where is the handling?
Deleted Comment
This is completely unrelated, but if you like weapons with cool names (or are looking for names for your next defense-industry startup) the Tolkien legendarium has many!
Angrist - the dagger that cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's iron crown. Means "Iron Cleaver" in Sindarin
Dagmor - "dark-slayer", Beren's short blade
Aranruth - The terrible sword of Thingol, King of Doriath. Means "King's Ire"
The twin bastard swords "Anglachel" and "Anguirel" -- Forged by Eol the Dark Elf from a meteor, these swords were both sort of malevolent and I think were probably inspired by the Norse Tyrfing. Probably also influenced Stormbringer and Mournblade in those terrible Moorcock books.
Celeg Aithorn - A legendary sword from the First Age. Reference to a Valar (God's) blade "lightning", and said to be the blade that will one day cleave the world.
Edit: Ack! I forgot my favorite. "Dramborleg" -- the axe that the man Tuor found during the Fall of Gondolin. He slew three balrogs (!) and many orc champions with it. Means "thudder-sharp", because it both smashes and cuts at the same time. ("smote both a heavy dint as of a club and cleft as a sword")
... that's enough. I know the posted tweet is a serious topic and what I have posted is not, but that's where I'm at today.
So they hijacked a name from Tolkien's works and the Tolkien estate did nothing about it?
They threatened to sue TSR for using "hobbit" in D&D in the 70s [0], which prompted D&D authors to change the name to "halfling" and later on change their lore a bit.
[0] https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/cease-and-desist-dont-mess...
"Hobbit" is rather central to the Tolkien brand; Palantir and Anduril are essentially props, so it could be that these were seen as less important instances of name-theivery.
Sidenote: the foundation of current computing is built on DoD money.
I think you'll find they'll loose goodwill from some other non-paying folks. There are many people who code and use this technology who are pro-military. They may not speak up in the same circles as those who are against this but they exist. I'm only pointing this out to showcase the market is more diverse than people often realize.
But are they pro-US military or they might be pro-other countries military?
Dead Comment
It's been a while since the US was in a war that we looked at afterward (or during, frankly) and said "yeah it was a good and smart thing we did that, worth the costs."
H&K, Anduril, Boston Dynamics, are just a few examples of companies who have entire product lines inaccessible to me, a private citizen who is not military, LEO, or a contractor of either.
Anduril, in particular, rubs me the wrong way because Palmer Luckey talks a big game about being pro-liberty, but his company will only sell to the pigs.
Deleted Comment
I'm not American, and to me it just seems like a very vocal minority is doing a lot of the talking on behalf of everyone else.
US Tech in the past: "we dislike the military, the government, the military-industrial complex (and generally all authority) because we skew hippy and/or libertarian. Let us be creative and free!"
US Tech today: "we dislike the military, the government, and the military-industrial complex because our particular flavour of cultural identity politics doesn't like it. Let us conform to the moral outrage of the day."
Meanwhile, the best reason IMO -- "we dislike the military, the government, the military-industrial complex because it serves the interests of the wealthy first and foremost (at the expense of the poor)" -- seems to get less discussion.
But all of these are reasons why tech can dislike the military or at least be uncomfortable with it, even while DARPA funding has helped progress tech and many innovations have come out of military-first applications.
Growing up in republican midwest and living in CA later I haven't met someone who just goes "military bad bc political party and moral outrage". I think that is just a twitter thing
Dead Comment
Palmer Luckey and Peter Thiel themselves are also quite controversial political actors.
Do you know how many people die attempting to cross that border? Hundreds every year.
Maybe when the temperature is extreme, you want to have an idea of where people are.
Dead Comment
I miss the early 2000's when hacker culture / defcon culture etc could exist on its on merits and wasn't coded by race, gender, politics or orientation...