Once upon a time in the land of FOSDEM silence reigned as folks wondered if Jack Dorsey would talk at FOSDEM after all. Would his talk be moved? Would there be a discussion and reconciliation between Protesters and the FOSDEM Organisers?
Would peace reign? Would there be no protest messing up the order of the conference?
Enlightened minds and shit-posters wanted to know. But no information came from the organisers. The silence seemed ominous. Would the organisers deign to tell the rabble of attendees what the plan was?
Well.....
Eventually "The Road to Mainstream Matrix" by Matthew Hodgson was announced.
This was a better option for a talk, and it was way more in scope for FOSDEM. Matrix is a protocol that is used by many of us in FOSS. We organise our open-source projects on it. It's an alternative to Discord which is a good thing. Matthew is way more qualified than Jack Dorsey to be talking at the largest free-to-attend FOSS Conference. [1],[2]
But FOSDEM missed a chance there. Instead of an announcement, they approached Drew De Vault and appear to have handled the situation. avoided the fuss. The discussion was cancelled with indications from FOSDEM that this discussion would be picked up later. A kicking of the can down the line to who knows when? [1]
I say handled because, in the article "FOSDEM keynote causes concerns" by Joe Brockmeier, LWN asked FOSDEM's press contact, Mark Van den Borre why Dorsey's talk was selected. FOSDEM had no answer to give on the pressing questions of:
But FOSDEM did take the time to reiterate that :
"Dorsey's talk had nothing to do with sponsorship". FOSDEM has always kept sponsorships and programming separate, and will continue to do so in the future."
Well, Van Den Borre had more to say on that to LWN:
"I think you'll be hard pressed to find many more open and transparent conferences than FOSDEM".
He cited examples such as FOSDEM's free entry policy, it's community-driven programming for devrooms, that FOSDEM publishes its site setup in a public Ansible repository, and the fact that none of the organizers are paid for their work. He did not specifically address the governance or transparency complaints raised by DeVault. However, he indicated a willingness on behalf of the organizers to listen.
We don't want to rest on our laurels. We want to keep improving ourselves and help [like-minded] organisers improve. Respectful contact with thoughtful visitors, speakers and other conference organisers is crucial to that.
Well we are not asking for more transparency from other conferences. We are asking it from FOSDEM. The largest free FOSS event.
FOSDEM does rest on it's laurels, well to be exact on the dev room talks and the volunteers that curate what will be presented in those rooms. I've been to FOSDEM several times. The only time I've attended Keynotes is when Simon Phipps from OSI was speaking. The volunteer work is important.
Folks a repository isn't enough. Although it is nice for people deciding to create their own events to get a glimpse of what goes into running a FOSDEM.
When I wrote asking for more transparency, I thought I'd been clear.
So let me share again what I was asking for.
So other than sundries like T-shirts and toilet paper, what is the budget? [2]
These are reasonable questions to ask of an organisation soliciting sponsorship and donations. Many things happen at FOSDEM that help FOSS projects, and folks with their careers. So much work goes into FOSDEM and it's done by volunteers.
Don't they deserve some transparency on governance etc for the event they put blood, sweat and tears into? Don't the Dev Room proposers? Don't the speakers?
I do believe that sponsorship had very little to do with Dorsey's talk being selected. But perhaps there needs to be a revision of the scoring for the review board for talks.
But others would like some transparency on how the dev rooms are selected. [1]
I do hope that the FOSDEM organisers, didn't just schedule Matthew, placate the protestors and hope everyone would just forget it. Because the point wasn't just about Jack Dorsey keynoting at FOSDEM.
It's about transparency. When you're running a free-to-attend conference that is always packed, there's a captive audience there. FOSDEM solicits donations. Keep kicking that can down the road and there will be another mistake, another controversy.
Which most of us have never wanted. We want FOSDEM to be better, to be more inclusive. To foster and grow a dynamic community. We need more points of view to avoid stagnation. We need imagination to face the next decade's challenges. But if FOSDEM can't do that, they will miss out on these folks. There will just be a sea of the usual suspects. Just bland corporate developers. Not the hackers, not the solar punkers, not the hope punkers and no awesome glitter unicorns. Just the corps, sharing the same old ideas of the older world as our world changes.
We just want to understand just what all that sponsorship money does. We want to understand how this conference is governed. This isn't just a small event anymore, it hasn't been for a long time. It matters.
Dorsey knew this. Why else do you think he'd even bother submitting? How FOSDEM operates and who the organisers are influenced by is important. Especially as a public venue for FOSS.
I've been critical of FOSDEM. As someone who's not been able to attend FOSDEM due to health concerns, I'm outside it now. Separate from it. While I am criticising it, I do miss going there. Meeting my friends and new folks. Frankly, Librecast needs to be talking to folks about itself. But we are making a choice to reduce our visibility to ensure we can still keep working on Librecast. It's too important to risk us being too ill, due to attending FOSDEM due to our FOMO. So we don't go. [3]
That does not mean the organizers should be immune to criticism or free from calls for improvement, but perspective—and one hopes kindness—is in order. Perhaps DeVault's, and others', calls for more transparent governance could also lead to reducing the workload on individual FOSDEM organizers and improve the event even further. [1]
But I do have a few ideas.
When I spoke at one of the dev rooms in 2020, the organisers were dissatisfied with the level of support FOSDEM gave. There had been a few sound issues as well. At the dinner in the restaurant after, some of us started brainstorming what would have helped them.
Because the Main Organisers and the Dev rooms do need help. Very often the Dev rooms could do with folks who can help with the sound and vision. When a schedule is tight, we could do with more volunteers and spare mics to have speakers miking up ready while the previous talk is finishing. Some more experienced dev rooms have years of experience. Like Brett Sheffield found in the IoT dev room when he gave his talk on the IoT updater. Some of us were not so fortunate in that regard.
New Dev rooms still do appear to have an issue as well. We saw just a week or so before FOSDEM SWF were asking for volunteers for the sound and vision etc for their dev room.
Perhaps in the weeks or months before FOSDEM throughout the year there could be some free seminars for folks who want to volunteer. Train them for specific things. Get a camaraderie going so that folks get excited before attending. So that you get more volunteers. Which will cost money, but hey FOSDEM is getting shiny sponsorship money. I mean if it doesn't come with golden handcuffs for its use, wouldn't ensuring that you have a coterie of experienced sound and vision volunteers be good? This would reduce some of the stress and burden on Dev room organisers and I'm sure the Dev room folks have a lot of ideas to improve how the rooms can be run. So I do hope that the first-timers and folks who have run Dev rooms in the past do take the time to send feedback to FOSDEM.
I am however hesitant to suggest this. As much as I miss FOSDEM, I'm quite disillusioned with the laissez-faire attitude to an ongoing Pandemic as the next one raises its head. It would take major changes and probably a parallel universe for me to attend FOSDEM ever again. Which I am sad about.
So instead I'm going to keep focusing on Librecast and if there's a way I can help with Fluconf then I will focus on that. [5]
COVID has taken away some spoons from me. I don't want to spend them on a conference that doesn't seem to understand the concept of transparent governance or a robust Public Health Policy. [7]
[1] https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/23/2025-01-23-Transparency-and-governance-FOSDEM.html
[2]https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6274-the-road-to-mainstream-matrix/
[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/1006351/
[4] https://www.onepict.com/20250122-mirror.html