131–140 of 251 posts
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The most important realization about FOSDEM is really: There's no way you can fully experience it or do it optimal. It's really about making sure you get value out of it, listen to some interesting talks and meet some people.
It's about collecting stickers.
My only disappointment with this year's geopolitcs-enhanced (always a welcome addition to tech by the way, as tech is ultimately steered by politics!) FOSDEM is a great underrepresentation of mainland China, and more generally the whole Global South. It is sad to see this omission in a time when the EU's free movement needs more like minded allies than ever. And what can be more free than that untethered by the chain…
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The entire idea of F/OSS itself is political, and was very radical. We're just accustomed to it now, so it's not "political", in other words, it's not "controversial". Perhaps F/OSS is -more- political than other spaces because we organize around projects? Here, and on Reddit, we see the fallout of drama all the time in various F/OSS communities over disagreeing over policies. That's... politics. Unless you happen to…
>The entire idea of F/OSS itself is political, and was very radical. Political and radical as it pertains to software , not whatever the grievance of the day to virtue signal over is. FOSS projects are tired of the incessant US-centric, champagne socialist politicking destroying their communities. Thankfully peak nonsense is behind us. You no longer have power. >But for some people, they can't really detach when thei…
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Well, it's hard to break bread with someone who you fundamentally disagree about things like humans rights issues with. Family or not. You don't just skip over that, and in fact why should you? Having blood relations means you have to sit and eat with someone who thinks you or people you know shouldn't exist or shouldn't be allowed to have the same rights as other people? I'm very glad that we've normalized not gloss…
> Well, it's hard to break bread with someone who you fundamentally disagree about things like humans rights issues with. It's actually not. It's very easy to get along with people, even those from whom we have vastly differing moral axioms, if we only try. Sadly these days many people are disinterested in trying, believing (wrongly) that they will make the world a better place if they sow more division.
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Your reading of "politics" seems quite narrow. Creating a place free of social status, hierarchies and with equal opportunity? That's 100% politics.
If that were the goal it might be politics. If its a side effect then its not.
> Not every open source project exists to solve geopolitical problems, and not every contributor arrives with a policy agenda. FOSDEM has always thrived on its diversity of motivations, and maintaining that balance will be increasingly challenging. It’s not just the FOSS scene but there is an increasing crowd (mostly on the internet) of “everything is political”. Honestly I’m not sure what will happen in the coming y…
I for one am getting pretty sick of it. FOSS is by nature apolitical, pre-competitive and for me has always been an intellectual exercise. This is the only way it can power Chinese clouds, Azure, AWS and GCP, and the many EU sovereign systems we're going to see. To me it's a place to find kind people who are enthusiastic about tech, like me. Now I find myself judged when using Nix, genAI, Blockchain, Omarchy (and by…
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> Well, it's hard to break bread with someone who you fundamentally disagree about things like humans rights issues with. It's actually not. It's very easy to get along with people, even those from whom we have vastly differing moral axioms, if we only try. Sadly these days many people are disinterested in trying, believing (wrongly) that they will make the world a better place if they sow more division.
Why try to get along with someone you have vastly different moral axioms to?
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While tools and software itself is not political, the people behind it are. eg. When CEOs and founders and project leads leverage their audience for politics, then their tools are absolutely a political choice. Be it DHH’s latest fasho ramblings or every time you do ‘swift build’ - Tim Cook takes a selfie with a sex offender. But let’s refocus on FOSDEM and the mission of libre software to allow us to exist without “…
I don't think your examples are comparable. DHH is (/was?) the face of ruby on rails and basecamp, whereas Cook is just the latest person at the helm of a tremendously large (personnel-wise) company someone else built. There are only 2 relevant phone types to consider, and please don't tell me Google/Samsung are morally superior to Apple. Even for ruby on rails, hundreds (thousands ?) of people have been contributing…
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I don't think anyone is confused about American OSS and American corporations run amok with wealth accumulation and regulatory capture. It's a European conference held at a time when governments are waking up to the realization that foreign-owned proprietary software is a bad idea, and the idea of "digital sovereignty" has been around for a bit and did not originate at FOSDEM. The governments also seem to understand…
> I don't think anyone is confused about American OSS and American corporations run amok... You literally just lumped it all together, exactly the fallacy I'm voicing my concern about. > foreign-owned proprietary OSS is global. "Foreign owned" is relative. If Americans reject "European" open source, it would make zero sense. > the US model What even is "the US model?" The things that are being described as "American"…
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1.) it's quiet clear the European sovereignity is a pitch to get resources into the OS eco system. 2.) it's very easy: after governments companies ans users will follow as os proofed to work. 3.) this is not us vs eu,.it is just us vs. The rest of the world. Canada and Mexico are threatened by Trumpy as well and located on another side of the Atlantic and probably their government are interested into OS as well. 4.)…
> your comment sounds like American don't want to protest against Trump because it is too dangerous At this time, we are still openly committed to the 2nd amendment in defense of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th and so on. I am encouraging others to participate in open-carry demonstrations to make it clear to the authoritarians that they will not get the intimidating optics of an unopposed crackdown against a helpless crowd th…