@freakazoid And I have this (annoying, I know) habit of not conflating everything I care about into everything I do. I care about privacy, but I understand that not everyone in the Free Software community does, and honestly, I think that's fine. To me, it's not required that everything is perfect in every possible way.
When I think about free software, the base of everything is the four freedoms, nothing more.
When I think about privacy, the context is very different.
@freakazoid Free Software is about the 4 freedoms, and the benefits that flow from that into use of that software, which includes things like allowing you make your computer (or printer) do what you want.
There are tangentially related causes, such as privacy, democracy, and freedom of expression, that are relevant and valid, and that I think are very important, but that, while free software can enormously help you achieving, are not directly part of the goals of Free Software.
Free software isn't just about freedom to use the software you happen to make. It's about the freedom to use my computer. My printer. My phone. Not to have these devices be controlled by their manufacturer to the point that we're really just paying rent up front.
There's not a hair on my head that does not agree with this, and you thinking otherwise only shows that you completely missed my point.
@freakazoid You have an opinion, and that's valid. My opinion is different.
Free software is not about the open internet. Free software is not about general purpose computing. Free software is not about democracy. Free software is not about privacy.
Those are all important things, and I support many of them! And free software will help you in those endeavours in a very big way.
But they're not free software, by themself. Free software is, well, free software. Nothing more.
*plonk*
FOSDEM is not my employer, so they can't fire me.
FOSDEM is a non-profit, all its organizers are volunteers who do this (largely thankless) work because they care about free software and/or open source.
I've also been active in the free software community as a Debian Developer and elsewhere for almost 25 years now, so trust me when I say I know what 'free software' is about.
@aral
@aral Finally, on the specific subject of having Google as a sponsor, I have a personal opinion on that, but I'm not going to comment on that in public.
@aral It also means that if you want to modify some free software so it can, say, control your military equipment, then that does not put you outside of the free software community, even though the free software community might have a larger percentage of people of people who are also pacifists than the general population.
But that's not an absolute, and to claim that free software is about human rights, privacy, or democracy is inaccurate, at best.
@aral My absolutely personal opinion in this debate: Open Source is about methodology, Free Software is about principles.
The principles in question are that everyone should have the freedom to modify software so it does what they need it to do, rather than what the author of the software wanted it to do. This does often include freedom of expression, privacy, human rights and democracy as a side benefit, but they're not why I care about free software.
Yes, Free Software is about politics. Which politics? Depends on who you ask. Some will say that freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy are part of that, but not everyone will, and that doesn't mean they're not part of the community.
This is an important debate but I don't think one in which FOSDEM as an organization has an opinion, even though some of its members might.
I felt that I couldn't pay attention to more than three displays. Even though the displays were arranged optimally (the desk's 2 on stands side by side, the laptop and portable one below those), it quickly became impossible for my brain to care about the fourth display. I'd often look from the laptop to the portable monitor and back, occasionally to top left, but top right just kept being ignored, even though lots was happening there.
YMMV, of course.
@hko
I tried the 'four displays' setup when last I was at my work's headquarters. Each desk there has two monitors connected to a USB-C docking station; I added my own USB-C portable monitor, and obviously also the laptop's built-in.
3 is useful. One where you work, one with the result of your work, one where you have reference material.
I had no real use for the fourth. I tried my mail and chat clients there, but that just didn't work for me.
@hko
You can totally brew it, but don't come complaining if you need to go to the doctor afterwards 😂
@original_peterm
the g in gobject stands for glib, and the g in glib stands for gtk, and the g in gtk stands for gimp, however the g in gimp stands for gnu, so really the g in glib stands for gnu, but you shouldn't confuse it with gnulib, which is developed by the gnu project, who shouldn't be confused as the developers of glib, which is the gnome project, in which the g also stands for gnu
Agree with most of what you said, do want to point out that the last bit (firewalls) is not a problem if you use podman as your container platform.
Apologies if you know all that already, just thought it might be nice to know.
@tippfehlr @thelinuxcast @rl_dane
/dev/random and lightning talks https://fosdem.org/2026/news/2025-12-10-dev-random/
@aral Good thing #FOSDEM isn't about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy, then. It's just about Free and Open Source Software.
(disclaimer: yes I'm a FOSDEM organizer, but no I don't speak for FOSDEM, my thoughts are my own)
RT: https://mastodon.ar.al/users/aral/statuses/115662581483977762
I've done L1 tech support while in college, can confirm.
People ask you to help fix their internet connection but you have to explain to them what 'right clicking' means, first. Nobody wants to do this.
Doesn't excuse not doing it. Nobody wants to call people to sell them things they don't need (BTDT too -- not proud of it, was desperate) yet they somehow find people. If they can do that, they can also find someone to answer a f***ing phone.
@briankrebs