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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

Many of the comments here are disappointing. Regardless of your opinion of the PSF or its leadership, you should be opposed to this kind of clawback threat because it nakedly represents an attempt to place a non-profit in a double bind: even attempting to comply with these requirements would allow a politicized IRA to claim that the PSF is failing to uphold its stated mission.

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Organizations should avoid funding by the government whenever possible. It creates incentives for the organization to align with the politics of the government. I am all for this outcome, as it’s a net win for PSF and any organization that can fund itself

Regardless of how you feel about the nature of government funding, you should be able to cogitate a strong argument for the U.S. government not playing “gotcha” games with its funding.

Yes, outcomes like these are the best way to avoid dependency on a central authority. I’m more for moving away from the ability of such authorities to exercise such power, rather than hoping they don’t abuse it. They certainly will eventually

The problem is that the population of the US is itself polarized, and different factions want the government to be doing extremely different things with its funds. If faction A has successfully gotten the US federal government to fund something for a long time, and faction B hates that thing, campaigns on ending the funding, and then does end it once they win an election and take power - then a demand for the US to not play gotcha games with its funding is isomorphic to a demand from political faction A to keep some of their preferred policies in place even though they are not currently in a position of electoral power.

This is exactly what set OpenBSD back in the early 2000s.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/defense-agency-pulls-openbsd-f...

Maybe that $500k that was earmarked for OpenSSL vulnerability testing would have found Heartbleed.

But if they don't get it from the government, they'll get it somewhere else, and then that will create incentives for the organization to align with the politics of whoever gives them the money. There's no escaping the implicit dependence that comes with accepting money.

I think we just need to reduce the amount of discretion involved in government action of all kinds.

> But if they don't get it from the government, they'll get it somewhere else

It's not an equal comparison. The biggest governments in the world don't need anymore consolidated power.

> I think we just need to reduce the amount of discretion involved in government action of all kinds.

This we both agree on.

> There's no escaping the implicit dependence that comes with accepting money.

And, at least, the government was elected and has votes to back its political power.

Other sources usually use money to back their political power, which is another problem altogether - political power should NEVER come solely from money.

> you should be opposed to this kind of clawback threat because it nakedly represents an attempt to place a non-profit in a double bind

The clawback is this sentence, yes? "NSF reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds if recipients, during the term of this award, operate any program in violation of Federal anti- discriminatory laws or engage in a prohibited boycott."

How exactly is "you must follow anti-discrimination law" a "naked" attempt at a double-bind?

(And, um, I'd be more worried about that "prohibited boycott" thing. It's mentioned explicitly in the sentence with the clawback, and I don't see where it's defined.)

Boycotting Israel, for example, is a prohibited boycott.

This is a little-known but long-established part of US policy; see https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac for more details. My employer actually has a reminder in the legal trainings of our corporate responsibilities under these policies (and yes, it rubs me the wrong way).

The evidence strongly suggests to me that the PSF knew, or reasonably ought to have known, the terms of the agreement months ago, which makes the current activity read very much like a publicity stunt (after realizing they wouldn't be able to take the money).

We are talking about a grant here. I can't see anything wrong with offering someone money that comes with strings attached, when you don't owe anything in the first place. Especially when the offer is being made generally rather than targeting anyone in particular.

In my assessment, the "stated mission" reflects politics that indirectly resulted in harm to me personally, perpetrated by the PSF's Code of Conduct Work Group. The way that this "mission" is presented is in line with common statements that the administration has identified as discriminatory, and I believe they are justified in coming to that conclusion. The PSF represents it as something simple and agreeable; but while I indeed agree with the idea they represent it as, in practice I have seen it mean something very different, and objectionable. In making this representation I find that they commonly insinuate salacious, untrue things about people with value systems like my own, and I consider that representation to be simply dishonest.

The Work Group in question has a document of "Enforcement Procedures" for the Code of Conduct. I determined that these procedures may lead to making decisions that directly contradict what the Code of Conduct says. When I pointed this out, I was baselessly accused of citing previous (unspecified) moderation action against me as examples of the phenomenon that the Code of Conduct forbids but the Enforcement Procedures require ignoring. In so doing, it was proposed that I characterized these actions in terms that I explicitly reject using. (In fact, the main point of my post was to reject the term — as it is one commonly used in strawman representations of my position.)

> The evidence strongly suggests to me that the PSF knew, or reasonably ought to have known, the terms of the agreement months ago

I have firsthand knowledge of the NSF grant in question, but not the PSF’s participation in it. It would not remotely surprise me that they didn’t know about these terms, because there’s a large amount of paperwork and process involved and much of it predates the current administration.

> which makes the current activity read very much like a publicity stunt (after realizing they wouldn't be able to take the money)

I mean, I think the PSF has very explicitly communicated their intent to use the grant’s withdrawal as a fundraising opportunity. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable, it’s what I would do in their situation to make the best of things.

(I don’t know about you or what you’ve been through, so I don’t have opinions there. But nothing about the PSF’s behavior here appears facially incorrect or unreasonable to me.)

> Many of the comments here are disappointing

Disappointing?

This is what Hacker News has been for at least a decade. Why would you expect any better?

It’s been disappointing to you for at least a decade and yet you keep using it? Blink twice if the mods have been keeping you imprisoned in the server closet and forcing you to speak to them in Arc

When there's a car crash, somebody's got to put out the traffic cones.

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