Nix* Governance: An Analysis

Posted Apr 30, 2024 21:13 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
In reply to: Nix* Governance: An Analysis by dmv
Parent article: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

> I was also interested in how they actually organize the conferences, given the clause in the Articles that says the board may not enter into agreements or contracts that make the Foundation the guarantor of a debt. Are the conference organizers putting themselves personally on the hook?

This is normal. Article 7 says the foundation can't act as guarantor for someone else's debt. They are allowed to enter into standard contracts themselves though. They have limited liability. The relevant article is actually Article 9 describing how the foundation is funded. Notably it does not mention debts, so any conference has to be financed from money they have on hand. Which is of course one of the reason sponsors are so useful: they can front money for the organisation before the conference starts and tickets are sold. Foundations ('stichtingen') tend to have a hard time getting loans from banks anyway precisely because they are so unaccountable.

> the governance issues will keep recurring unless and until the different projects figure out what their actual status is vis-a-vis the Foundation.

Agreed, this is a cluster-f*ck. The foundation seems setup entirely for the benefit of the founders, not the community. This was going to blow up eventually no matter what happened.