Statement on planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025
fosdem.org
fosdem.org
Jack Dorsey's slot at FOSDEM 25:
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4507-infu...
Block's GitHub:
Selections from Drew DeVault's post:
"""
... we do not object to the need for sponsors generally at FOSDEM ... we do object specifically to Jack Dorsey and Block, Inc. being selected as sponsors and especially as speakers.
... Our purpose is to peacefully disrupt Dorsey’s talk, and only Dorsey’s talk ...
... His complicity, along with his present-day activities at Block, Inc. and the priorities of the company that he represents as CEO — its irresponsible climate policy, $120M in fines for enabling consumer fraud, and the layoffs of another 1,000 employees in 2024 despite posting record profits on $5B in revenue — are enough of a threat to our community and its ethos to raise alarm at his participation in FOSDEM.
"""
I'm a little at a loss for context. A shallow reading is that DeVault's contention is that Dorsey sold Twitter and is now involved in many cryptocurrency focused companies. Is this too reductive of a reading?
As far as I can tell, a significant portion of Block's codebase, as well as other sibling organizations, are FOSS.
Fair. You do not become a billionaire without being a massive POS.
From a recent post by DeVault [0] titled "No billionaires at FOSDEM" (thanks to belter [1]):
"""
In my view, billionaires are not welcome at FOSDEM.
"""
[0] https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares...
> As such, if a peaceful protest were to take place during the talk in question, we will not take action, provided the protest is indeed peaceful and does not disrupt the proceedings.
However, the link you gave explicitly states: “Our purpose is to peacefully disrupt Dorsey’s talk”.
I think I side with the FOSDEM organizers here; I am not OK with disrupting anyone’s talk. Protests are fine, actual disruptions are not.
Martin Luther King was arrested 29 times and then he was shot.
Strictly speaking, what we're discussing is direct action rather than protest. The aim of these protesters is not merely to make a public display of their disapproval, but to take active steps to prevent something from happening, i.e. to prevent a talk from taking place by "occupying" the stage. The participants in that action may feel morally justified and may indeed be morally justified, but that doesn't negate the consequences of their actions. Giving anyone impunity to break whatever rule they like if they feel it's justified is a very short path to anarchy.
Go on then, polite member of society who doesn't understand the point of protests. I'm looking forward to your counter-protest that will not disrupt anything, will largely go unnoticed, be super polite but still be a huge success and change the status quo.
People risk their livelihood and lives to protest because they think something is is wrong enough that it needs to be changed that desperately.
People today will complain all day about Amazon and Jeff bezos but ask them to cancel their Amazon prime subscription? No way!
Just look at what Sam Hussain and Max Blumenthal, the reporters, did the other day, and that should give people an idea of civil disobedience.
What FOSDEM is saying is that they don't want civil disobedience, only protests. And they want to set the rules for the protest. So FOSDEM is turning into the state.
This is clearly an attempt by the minority of attendees to use coercion to limit the free speech of someone they dislike.
If a minority of people reject broad consensus and to prevent any person from peacefully speaking in an assigned time slot, they are not participating in anarchy. They are simply being dicks.
Adults respect the right of their enemies to speak peacefully. Quietly hold up signs, wear T-shirts, but respect peaceful free speech. Next year submit your own talk with an alternative prespective to try to form consensus on why billionaires and or companies with higher-than-x carbon emissions should be unwelcome, or propose an alternative method to gain broader community consensus on approving talks
I don't agree with the position, but I appreciate the distinction.
Bypassing labor laws, banking regulations, copyright? All right! Making a fuss when they are talking? Uncivil, not OK, who do you think you are!
Many "tech thought leaders" are, for lack of a better word, clinically relevant narcissists. In their view, the world revolves around them and their ideas, everyone else has to stand aside for their grand plans, and god forbid you try and shine a spotlight on their bullshit - then you are the enemy.
That also explains the hard shift towards the (far-)right observed over the last weeks, with pledges of allegiance made in Florida. It's not just about the 47th threatening revenge against anyone not supporting him, it's more about the simple fact that the progressive/left doesn't provide the positive feedback that these "leaders" crave like nothing else.
Disrupting a talk simply because you don’t like AI or fintech is, for lack of a better term, lame. A payment processor isn’t responsible for the climate emergency, and a company isn’t evil for having a wealthy founder or having to do layoffs.
His upset is misplaced.
"have to" is carrying a lot of water for the fintech with >5 billion in revenue
I'll be even there this year. But not interested in this event
""No billionaires at FOSDEM" - https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares...
Also these are the recommended actions:
"To maintain the peaceful nature of our protest and minimize the disruption to FOSDEM generally, we ask participants to strictly adhere to the following instructions:
Do not touch anyone else, or anyone else’s property, for any reason.
Do not engage in intimidation.
Remain quiet and peaceful throughout the demonstration.
When the protest ends, disperse peacefully and in a timely manner.
Leave the room the way you found it. "
The people who spend a significant amount of time (often in my experience unpaid) arranging a conference have to mix and match and probably make some unpopular compromises for reasons know best to them. I do think one should get them the benefit of the doubt as to why.
Just dont attend the talk. It is that easy.
The ultimate protest would be a nearly empty room. That would be quite humiliating for the person giving the talk.
"I, like many people, have a complicated relationship with Twitter. As Adam and I regaled in a recent Twitter Space, it started when debugging the Twitter fail whale in the offices of Obvious in 2007, where I became thoroughly unimpressed with their self-important skipper, Jack Dorsey. In part because I thought he was such a fool, I refused to join Twitter out of principle."
https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2022/11/05/twitter-when-the-wal...
It seems to me letting Dorsey speak and ridicule himself in front of an audience of technically savvy people would actually be the best way to discredit him.
[0] https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2024/11/16/blogging-through-the...
The front page says:
"DTrace is a performance analysis and troubleshooting tool that is included by default with various operating systems, including Solaris, Mac OS X and FreeBSD. A Linux port is in development."
Then it lists blogs.
some discussion of that post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=607335 and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3963456
the key part: "At least half the questions (all technical) during and after the talk were from the protesters. [...] as a result of Stallman's ploy, my audience was about twice what it would have been."
(Drew's latest posts has similar reminders)
> This special relationship and this special event can be destroyed by the actions from just a few.
That's so true.
At our university in the 00s student protestors (they were against some fees, I think) posed as the student council for electrotechnics and got PA equipment from the university administration. Which they used to disrupt some big welcoming ceremony for foreign guest academics.
Now the electrotechnics parties had no PA equipment anymore. Because the administrative employee pointed out that technically the equipment was never for such use. Over decades(!) he had always handed it out because why wouldn't you support a big student party and the organizers had always been very responsible with it and returned it in pristine condition.
But now the risk for him personally outweighed any goodwill. Tough luck!
"Our purpose is to peacefully disrupt Dorsey’s talk" then do it outside, that is where your Protest belongs and where you actually have a right to protest. Obviously anyone who comes to an event with the goal of disrupting that event needs to be removed or just not let in.
It seems extremely uncontroversial to ban everyone involved in the planned protest from attending.
From https://fosdem.org/2025/faq/#registration
> Q: I plan on visiting FOSDEM, where can I register?
> No registration is required.
> Q: How much does a entry ticket for FOSDEM cost?
> Attendance is free, including access to all talks and facilities.
Would staging a sit-in explicitly intended to prevent the booked speaker from speaking be classed as “disrupting the proceedings”?
No Billionares at FOSDEM
I hate this style of press releases. It’s rude to assume your readership is hip deep in the scene drama.
Their statement is a global reminder of the organization rules:
- they don't give preferential treatment to speakers
- they allow peaceful protest