Because “Free and Open Source Software isn’t about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy” is one helluva take.
(And yes, you’re right, “open source” isn’t about any of those things. It’s just about the source being openly available. Not about protecting its openness or anything. It’s open as in “open for business.” But free (as in freedom) software/technology…? Well, I guess some of us would beg to differ.)
Oh, and if you want a philosophy/movement that isn’t shy or apologetic about being about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy, see Small Tech:
🚄 All aboard the #HackerTrain to #FOSDEM !! 🚃
Going to #FOSDEM2026? Thinking of going by #train?
Would you like to meet other hackers along the way?
Join us on the https://hackertrain.
Someone kindly reached out to ask if I would consider speaking about Gaza Verified (gaza-verified.org/) at the Social Web Devroom being organised by the Social Web Foundation at FOSDEM.
My answer is no.
And I feel it’s important for those of us who care about such things to understand why:
• Social Web Foundation (socialwebfoundation.org) partners with, and thereby whitewashes and legitimises Meta
• FOSDEM (fosdem.org/2026) allows itself to be sponsored by, and thereby whitewashes and legitimises, Google and IBM (Red Hat)
Meta and Google are both surveillance capitalists with strong ties to the Trump regime that is arming and financing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. IBM, apart from having helped Nazi Germany carry out the Holocaust, is also singled out by name, alongside Google (Alphabet
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Someone kindly reached out to ask if I would consider speaking about Gaza Verified (gaza-verified.org/) at the Social Web Devroom being organised by the Social Web Foundation at FOSDEM.
My answer is no.
And I feel it’s important for those of us who care about such things to understand why:
• Social Web Foundation (socialwebfoundation.org) partners with, and thereby whitewashes and legitimises Meta
• FOSDEM (fosdem.org/2026) allows itself to be sponsored by, and thereby whitewashes and legitimises, Google and IBM (Red Hat)
Meta and Google are both surveillance capitalists with strong ties to the Trump regime that is arming and financing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. IBM, apart from having helped Nazi Germany carry out the Holocaust, is also singled out by name, alongside Google (Alphabet, Inc.), as complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people (aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/1/un…).
It shouldn’t be hard for organisations that purport to be alternatives to toxic Big Tech to not be sponsored and affiliated with them. But apparently it is.
Personally, I have no trouble saying no to having my name and legitimacy being used to whitewash these corporations and I have been doing so since the beginning.
I will not stand – literally or metaphorically – in front of their banners and talk about an initiative that tries to help the very people victimised by these corporations in their sociopathic quest for profit at any cost.
I hope more people start doing the same if we are to have any chance of making these corporations with their toxic business models and their complicity in genocide socially unacceptable. If we cannot even meet that already-very-low bar – as long as those of us with legitimacy allow ourselves to be used to normalise them – nothing will change.
The only flavour of decentralisation there’s no room for at FOSDEM is the kind that won’t speak at a conference that allows itself to be sponsored by, and thereby whitewashes, a surveillance capitalist like Google that is complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
Do you have ideas about funding Free and Open Source technologies? Consider submitting a talk for the 2nd edition of the Funding the #FOSS Ecosystem devroom at #FOSDEM. The Call for Participation is open until December 1, 2025. Hosted in collaboration with @fsfe @linuxfoundation @PrototypeFund @sovtechfund
