[Funding] nixos shirts

[katexochen]

Purpose

Hey, I want to produce some NixOS shirts, to exchange against donation at FOSDEM and other events.
These will be high quality, sustainable shirts screen printed by a local shop.
Material + production cost will be ~20€/shirt for a 100 shirts order.

Organizer

Paul Meyer (@katexochen)

Budget

2000€

[djacu]

@katexochen has talked with the @NixOS/marketing-team about promoting the NixOS project at FOSDEM. They have a booth and this is a great opportunity to promote the project. The team endorses this budget request.

[infinisil]

With donations in return, there's no reason to say no to this initiative, great initiative!

Regarding the price, as a point of reference for NixCon we ordered 500 shirts for a price of ~3000 EUR, so I would double check if the quality is really worth it and otherwise try to find a cheaper producer. I'll ping @ners and @johnrodewald, who ordered the NixCon 2025 shirts, but I've also heard there's good shirt producers in Germany that were used for previous NixCons, I recommend reaching out to previous organisers.

In any case, if this is a perk only available for a ~21 EUR or above donation, it would be fine.

To actually be able to accept donations in person, you'll need a SumUp device. Once approved I'll check how we can best get you one for FOSDEM.

Can you confirm the shirt price/quality and that you can take care of handling the donations with a foundation-provided SumUp device at FOSDEM?

[djacu]

@infinisil is there another method that @katexochen can use for accepting donations? Can they take cash from the con attendees and make a personal donation?

[infinisil]

I do think we need to provide an option for people to get a receipt, which SumUp makes very easy digitally

[katexochen]

Regarding the price, as a point of reference for NixCon we ordered 500 shirts for a price of ~3000 EUR, so I would double check if the quality is really worth it and otherwise try to find a cheaper producer.

Not sure how you did that, but 6€ per shirt doesn't sound like a responsible production practice.
The shirts used in the shops I selected are from Stanley Stella, and have both a premium quality and a sustainable footprint. The shirt without print is already more expensive than 6€ afaik.
The print will have multiple colors, and for screen print you pay per color.

I think a price of 20€ for a high quality shirt is okay in general.

In any case, if this is a perk only available for a ~21 EUR or above donation, it would be fine.

I'd prefer to have a bit more flexibility with this. I think it should be enough for the foundation to get the money back. People wearing NixOS shirts is a value for the foundation in itself. Also I'd like to offer shirts for people with less money for say ~15€ while suggesting a donation of 25€ for those who can.

To actually be able to accept donations in person, you'll need a SumUp device. Once approved I'll check how we can best get you one for FOSDEM.

Nice, thanks!

[infinisil]

@katexochen Sounds good! Yeah the goal is really that we can use as much of the total for the benefit of the wider Nix community as possible, and not having to spend all of it on the costs of the donation perks. For another reference, the necklaces we had at Nixcons cost about €1-2 to produce and we gave them away for a €5 donation or more, but the average donation was ~€12, though the same scale is not as realistic for shirts.

To make this a bit more structured, I've written a draft PR to document NixOS Foundation in-person donation more generally: #232. As the first person part of this, can you read through that to make sure it's reasonable?

[katexochen]

Yeah the goal is really that we can use as much of the total for the benefit of the wider Nix community as possible, and not having to spend all of it on the costs of the donation perks.

Like I said, I don't think this is something the foundation should require. What you want to sell here for a profit (event if it is for the good of the community) is, in the end, my work. And I really don't like the foundation to put a price tag on the work I'm doing voluntarily.

To make this a bit more structured, I've written a draft PR to document NixOS Foundation in-person donation more generally: #232. As the first person part of this, can you read through that to make sure it's reasonable?

I think the process you documented sounds pretty bureaucratic. It places additional burdens on organizers.

[infinisil]

Like I said, I don't think this is something the foundation should require

Yeah it's not a requirement, it's also fine if we don't have a profit in the end.

I think the process you documented sounds pretty bureaucratic. It places additional burdens on organizers.

Can you be more specific? It's mostly adding yourself to the repo to endorse you as an official representative and informing people at the event about it. I tried to keep it very lightweight, and I'm happy to adjust it to make it as smooth as possible, so you're feedback is very welcome!

[infinisil]

@katexochen Sorry for the delay, @Ra33it0 brought this to the foundation meeting again, we discussed it and are approving this expense, independently of whether and how donations are set up. We thank you for making the NixOS devroom a possibility at FOSDEM!

Make sure to refer to this issue when submitting the expense to https://opencollective.com/nixos/expenses/new. Please also post a link to the expense here if possible, so we have it linked in both directions.

Enjoy the event and please post pictures and/or a report here so we can publish it on social media :)

[katexochen]

https://opencollective.com/nixos/expenses/281623