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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Right. So why haven't they gotten rid of Google as a sponsor then given that they also hold contracts with multiple governments, militaries and especially one contract with the Pentagon in the US on top of aiding their surveillance programmes?
(Biased, I work at Google), but I think there's a material difference between what Google does (as I understand it, from public info) – providing infrastructure services on Google Cloud, as all the major cloud providers do, or providing customer support for cloud workloads – and building defence related technology. To my knowledge Google and the other big tech companies aren't building application directly for offence/defence. It seems this company might be.
I would never work at a company that designs and builds missiles or fighter jets, but I would work at a cloud provider that provides infrastructure that is used to design missiles or fighter jets, in the same way that I would work at a telecoms company that provides the phone systems to a defence contractor.
Being one level removed, and providing "neutral" services, is a substantial difference for me, and I suspect for most people.
Should they drop power companies and internet service providers too? How many hops away from direct responsibility is enough for moral purity? I think only one hop should do.
The reality of the world is that if you want a self-determined life and a self determined government, you MUST be better armed and prepared to fight than any bully, abuser, or autocrat. If not, they will soon take your lunch and your government — every time.
Claiming you want "peace" without accounting for how you will defeat the bullies, abusers, and autocrats only helps them, not you. It brings war, not peace. Bullies, abusers, and autocrats do not give a fork about scolding and condemnation; if they succeed in taking what they want, regardless of any talk, they WILL take more — failure to stop them is literally seen as permission to do more.
So, this is the action of absolute fools and cowards. Specifically, Useful Idiots in the Vladmir Lenin sense. Or worse yet, the actions of active supporters of genocidal autocracies.
(And, do not even try to do whataboutism about the failings of the Democratic nations. Even their worst historical failings do not begin to compare vs the active genocide and war crimes being systematically committed today by the autocracies today, Russia in Ukraine, China on Tibet and Uighurs, Myanmar, etc..).
This kind of bullshirt move by sniveling cowards and poseur fauxgressives is a move in the direction of literally getting us all killed.
edit: Also possible that they are just thoughtlessly responding to some clueless complaints, but the failed to even call out even who made the complaints. Nevertheless, this still literally carries water for Xi and Putin.
[+] [-] arianvanp|2 years ago|reply
* 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
[+] [-] zimbatm|2 years ago|reply
This is what I tried to communicate to Anduril via email but it must have been lost in translation.
[+] [-] madars|2 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] abathur|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sremani|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debo_|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nextaccountic|2 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] fodkodrasz|2 years ago|reply
Sidenote: the foundation of current computing is built on DoD money.
[+] [-] mfer|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] boffinAudio|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xyzal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wlesieutre|2 years ago|reply
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."
[+] [-] caeril|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lelanthran|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] corry|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] boffinAudio|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] peatmoss|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burkaman|2 years ago|reply
Palmer Luckey and Peter Thiel themselves are also quite controversial political actors.
[+] [-] mintplant|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mepian|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abathur|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobiX|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FireBeyond|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bowsamic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boffinAudio|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 71a54xd|2 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] colinsane|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rvz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danpalmer|2 years ago|reply
I would never work at a company that designs and builds missiles or fighter jets, but I would work at a cloud provider that provides infrastructure that is used to design missiles or fighter jets, in the same way that I would work at a telecoms company that provides the phone systems to a defence contractor.
Being one level removed, and providing "neutral" services, is a substantial difference for me, and I suspect for most people.
[+] [-] naasking|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analognoise|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlindner|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toss1|2 years ago|reply
Claiming you want "peace" without accounting for how you will defeat the bullies, abusers, and autocrats only helps them, not you. It brings war, not peace. Bullies, abusers, and autocrats do not give a fork about scolding and condemnation; if they succeed in taking what they want, regardless of any talk, they WILL take more — failure to stop them is literally seen as permission to do more.
So, this is the action of absolute fools and cowards. Specifically, Useful Idiots in the Vladmir Lenin sense. Or worse yet, the actions of active supporters of genocidal autocracies.
(And, do not even try to do whataboutism about the failings of the Democratic nations. Even their worst historical failings do not begin to compare vs the active genocide and war crimes being systematically committed today by the autocracies today, Russia in Ukraine, China on Tibet and Uighurs, Myanmar, etc..).
This kind of bullshirt move by sniveling cowards and poseur fauxgressives is a move in the direction of literally getting us all killed.
edit: Also possible that they are just thoughtlessly responding to some clueless complaints, but the failed to even call out even who made the complaints. Nevertheless, this still literally carries water for Xi and Putin.
[+] [-] hardware2win|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrill|2 years ago|reply