# Rust Project and the Rust Foundation

(Note taking started late, ~16.45)

Foundation: How are actions from the Rust Foundation seen, when they do not directly benefit the user (Talking to goverement agencies, AI statement, Fundraising)?
- E.g. Project members being against AI usecases, vs. AI applications relevant to Funding (members).
- How can the Foundation give feedback with more motivation in such cases, since not all motivation might be able to be shared publically (e.g. in Zulip)?
- E.g. private companies don't want their private discussions with the Foundation to be shared

The project usually talks to people who already like Rust, the Foundation talks usually to those wo don't like Rust (yet).

The Foundation publishes such (e.g. AI) statements, but does not talk to me (Project member), so I do feel unheared.
- A: Come to our (Foundation) Zulip Channel! I am not following Social Media
- The Rust project does not have a (strict) reporting hirarchy, but some members (council) receive more context from the Foundation.
- Further feedback paths for the future would be desirable
- Worst case, please DM me (Foundation member)
- At some times, when no public discussions are possible, please trust [your project representative]. Such trust should be earned by having most discussion openly, so people can confidence by observing their representative.

Resulting action item:
**Onboarding guide**
- How to most efficiently interact with the Foundation as a projcet member
- Figure out responsability to create that guid
-- Foundation can help, but probably content filled by the Project
- Content: How to handle conflict of interest?

Prepared question list by the Foundation:
1) Do you (Project member) feel like you can keep up with what the foundation does (beyond meeting notes)? How can we improve that? What level of interests do we have?
-- Gracy started project specific notes for project members
-- Some type of updates which the foundation send out in the past weren't interest for project members and got paused at some point
-- If a press release mentiones e.g. Microsoft, the Foundation has to give 10 days to microsoft to review before it goes public - causing some communication delays

2. Perception of Conflict of Interest.
-- Foundation member from the Project: we try not to let our employment status impact us.
-- Example: Microsoft Clippy copyright.
-- Do people actually see that as something problematic?
-- Discussion around whether Companies have that different priorities than users, e.g. how important is stability?
-- Project Director: We (Project directors) should purely represent the project (and hobbyist, academics, etc), but not our companies. We appreciate feedback if you encounter cases where this does not seem to be the case.
-- Note: Board makes funding decissions, so conflicts should be managed.
-- Answer (board): Only 2 board members from the same company.
-- Subsidaries are considered (e.g. Github is counted towards Microsoft)
-- Foundation members try to clarify background where relevant (e.g. "Speaking with my $COMPANY hat"), but bias and differences in values exist.
-- Foundation tries to even out Bias by having multiple people on the board, which hopefully balance each other out
-- (Foundation member): Not seen as a problem now, but we want to keep the Rust way, where a company membership does not have a large impact on our decision (which differs from some other projects).
-- How do we deal with BigTech funding most of the core contributors in other languages (e.g. LLVM)?
-- One reason bigtech companies invest is to prevent any other bigtech company to have too much impact by paying too many project members. Might help with balancing?