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FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

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Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#151
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 “…

> 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. I don't follow. Are you implying that by using Ruby on Rails or Omarchy one is fasho aligned ? Or that people that use Swift somehow support sex offenders ?

More like... when they use their platforms to promote whatever, you helping those platforms move forward is essentially helping them push the whatever forward. I don't get why is this so hard to understand. Unfortunately, we've gotten to a place where picking a tool is also an expression of your support for the politics of the people/corps behind it.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the EU will have more to worry about than Windows

The US can, right now, crash pretty much the entire western industry/economy by disconnecting their digital services.

The US already threatens the western world with that power. They already use it.

Of course the EU has to care about that. The reason they accepted the dependency was that for a long time they were looking up to the US, and couldn't imagine that the US could become an enemy in the space of a few weeks.

Now the US has proven that they could realistically go from this state that the western world trusted to declaring war to allies in a matter of weeks. Of course everybody is scared.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#153
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would go further and claim that anyone who sees themselves as "apolitical" just basically thinks their own opinion is the only true way to see things "rationally" (and as such "fact" and not an opinion; nothing to be "political" about), and everyone else is just plain wrong/mistaken. Since they're not ready to admit this to themselves and others, they hide behind the "apolitical" label. Otherwise they would see tha…

This closely matches the way a few of my "apolitical" friends behave.

They mostly think their opinion is the right one, and others are just flailing around not understanding the real "objective" "truth". But they never spent more than a minute thinking things through and re-evaluating their biases and "objective reality"...

They then spend quite some time ranting about things that are obviously political, but on the same breath say they are proud not to vote...

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to work quite well. Perhaps together you can think of a cause to the rift, and try to actively fight it instead of each other. Start with commonalities, not differences. I think it’s important to, at the very least, never stop trying.

How extreme of moral axiom differences should we tolerate?

I don't know if you notice what you're doing, but you're turning a low stakes / no confrontation situation into a high stakes / confrontational situation for no discernible benefit.

This type of self destructive behavior may seem worthwhile in the moment, but in the long run it doesn't bring any benefits, because you have to fight the people you're declaring war against and if the list of enemies is long enough, you're almost certainly guaranteed to lose against one of them.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because they may be your neighbors, your colleagues? Because they're going to the same third place as you, whatever that might be?

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear what you want them to do instead.

Have an AI track focused on how to use AI to improve OSS software instead of how to run LLama on RISC-V. Invite the open source developpers behind popular OSS AI frameworks such as opencode, etc. Invite talkers from large companies that produce open source software and models such as Mistral.AI Invite talkers from companies that run OSS LLMs at scale such as groq Invite the people who build drones in Ukraine, (probab…

> Have an AI track focused on how to use AI to improve OSS software

Like this AI track? What more do you want?

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/track/ai/

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#157
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Varlink talk really was very salesy for a Fosdem presentation. Shouldn't be long until the recording becomes available, feel free to tell me I was wrong after watching it.

It's mainly re-hashed. I think I've seen the same talk twice before? At least once. It's a very "I've made a cool thing. This is what I think is cool about it" type of talk. Which I don't think is uncommon for FOSDEM. Maybe a bit uncommon for a higher profile figure like Lennart.

> It's mainly re-hashed. I think I've seen the same talk twice before? At least once.

He held a similar talk at All Systems Go I think (I missed the talk here at FOSDEM).

> It's a very "I've made a cool thing. This is what I think is cool about it" type of talk.

Varlink isn't something he just made up, he mearly "adopted it" (started making use of it). It existed before, but I don't know anything that really made use of it before.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please leave feedback on talks (good and bad), it is useful for helping shape the program for next year

specifically to feedback@fosdem.org At the closing, they requested that you send them any feedback about any part of the event

Also on each talks page on the website you can find a "Submit Feedback" link for feedback on that specific talk

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#159
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLM turds will degrade more and more over time. The newbies will become even dumber and people with actual knowledge will be several steps over anthing else trained to copy and paste from bullshitters.

Yeah man. Just like how novel reading, newspapers, music, rock music, the internet, computer games all made everyone super dumb and the world ended. I am definitely sure that this time you are right and the world will actually end this time, everyones going to end up way dumber than you, or if they dont, you will still pretend it happened and be smug about it on the internet.

Mobile computer games compared to the ones from the 80's, 90's, and early 00's? For sure. Ditto with tons of best sellers, which are very dull and dumbed down compared to what I could read in Spanish "Dollar Stores" like shops in Spain such as the books Clarke/PKD and Orwell novels for very little, less than what $2 were in Pesetas (pre Euro Spanish currency) in late 90's.

Nowadays you have AI generated books which are very surpar even if they look an impressive exercise of LLM's.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#160
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone I spoke to this year had issues with the trains into Belgium. Cancellations, delays, strikes.

Was the Eurostar delayed, does anyone know?

Worked for me from Amsterdam.
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