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2025-01-23-Transparency-and-governance-FOSDEM.md (5342B)

---
title: Join us to discuss transparency and governance at FOSDEM '25
date: 2025-01-23
---
Good news: it appears that Jack Dorsey's FOSDEM talk has been cancelled!
*This is a follow up to two earlier posts, which you can read here: [one] and
[two]*.
I say it "appears" so, because there has been no official statement from anyone
to that effect. There has also been no communication from staff to the protest
organizers, including to our email reaching out [as requested] to discuss fire
safety and crowd control concerns with the staff. The situation is a bit
unclear, but… we'll extend FOSDEM the benefit of the doubt, and with it our
gratitude. From all of the volunteers who have been organizing this protest
action, we extend our heartfelt thanks to the staff for reconsidering the
decision to platform Dorsey and Block, Inc. at FOSDEM. All of us -- long-time
FOSDEM volunteers, speakers, devroom organizers, and attendees -- are relieved
to know that FOSDEM stands for our community's interests.
More importantly: what comes next?
The frustration the community felt at learning that Block was sponsoring FOSDEM
and one of the keynote slots[^1] had been given to Dorsey and his
colleagues uncovered some deeper frustrations with the way FOSDEM is run these
days. This year is FOSDEM's 25th anniversary, and it seems sorely overdue for
graduating from the "trust us, it's crazy behind the scenes" governance model to
something more aligned with the spirit of open source.
We trust the FOSDEM organizers --- we can extend them the benefit of the doubt
when they tell us that talk selection is independent of sponsorships. But it
strains our presumption of good faith when the talk proposal was [rejected by 3
of the 4][rejection] independent reviewers and went through anyway. And it's
kind of weird that we have to take them at their word --- that the talk
selection process isn't documented anywhere publicly, nor the conflict of
interest policy, nor the sponsorship terms, nor almost anything at all about how
FOSDEM operates or is governed internally. Who makes decisions? How? We don't
know, and that's kind of weird for something so important in the open source
space.
[^1]: Later moved to the main track, same time, same room, before it was ultimately cancelled.
[rejection]: https://chaos.social/@phoenix/113849512507355397
Esther Payne, a speaker at FOSDEM 2020, [summed up these concerns][onepict]:
> Why do we have so little information on the FOSDEM site about the budget and
> just how incorporated is FOSDEM as an organisation? How do the laws of Belgium
> affect the legalities of the organisation? How is the bank account
> administrated? How much money goes into the costs of this year, and how much
> of the budget goes into startup costs for the next year?
[onepict]: https://www.onepict.com/20250122-mirror.html
Peter Zaitsev, a long-time devroom organizer and FOSDEM speaker for many years,
[asked similar questions last year][peter]. I've spoken to the volunteers who
signed up for the protest -- we're relieved that Dorsey's talk has been
cancelled, but we're still left with big questions about transparency and
governance at FOSDEM.
[peter]: https://www.percona.com/blog/in-search-of-transparency-at-fosdem/
So, what's next?
~~Let's do something useful with that now-empty time slot in Janson. Anyone who
planned to attend the protest is encouraged to come anyway on Sunday at 12:00
PM, where we're going to talk amongst ourselves and anyone else who shows up
about what we want from FOSDEM in the future, and what a transparent and
participatory model of governance would look like. We would be thrilled if
anyone on the FOSDEM staff wants to join the conversation as well, assuming
their busy schedule permits. We'll prepare a summary of our discussion and our
findings to submit to the staff and the FOSDEM community for consideration after
the event.~~
Until then -- I'll see you there!
**NOTICE**: The discussion session has been cancelled. After meeting with many
of the protest volunteers and discussing the matter among the organizers, we
have agreed that de-platforming Dorsey is mission success and improvising
further action isn't worth the trouble. We'll be moving for reforms at FOSDEM
after the event -- I'll keep you posted.
---
P.S. It's a shame we won't end up handing out our pamphlets. The volunteers
working on that came up with this amazing flyer and I think it doesn't deserve
to go unseen:
[one]: /2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares-at-FOSDEM-please.html
[two]: /2025/01/20/2025-01-20-FOSDEM-protest.html
[as requested]: https://fosdem.org/2025/news/2025-01-16-protests/
<style>
.flyers {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-around;
}
.flyers a {
  max-width: 45%;
}
</style>
<div class="flyers">
  <a href="https://redacted.moe/f/abaeed07.pdf">
    <img
      alt="Front face of the flyer: 'No billionares at FOSDEM' over a picture of Jack Dorsey with the 'X' logo over his mouth."
      src="https://redacted.moe/f/261d03ea.jpeg" />
  </a>
  <a href="https://redacted.moe/f/abaeed07.pdf">
    <img
      alt="Reverse face of the flyer, detailing Dorsey and Block, Inc's numerous misdeeds"
      src="https://redacted.moe/f/adab02ce.jpeg" />
    </a>
</div>
We will be doing a modest print run for posterity --- find one of us at FOSDEM
if you want one.