Sigh.
I'm not part of the FOSDEM organisation team, and this is by choice.
I know that I wouldn't find the time to help organize a conference of
the scale of FOSDEM, since I'm rather liable to forget to do important
things at times.
Having said that, I happen to run a company together with
Philip Paeps, who is now one of
the main FOSDEM organizers; apart from that, I've also managed the
Debian presence there for the past few years (lost count how many
exactly),
and arranged the key signing party for a few
years with Joost Van Baal taking over for me starting this year.
As such, I'd like to believe that although I'm not exactly in to all
their secrets, I do have a front-row seat when it comes to how things
are going there.
FOSDEM is the "Free and Open Source Developers' European Meeting". It
has been that since 2001, and will always remain so. Yes, originally it
was called "OSDEM", because frankly, the organisation of the original
OSDEM was done by a group of people who like Open Source, without
necessarily subscribing to the Free Software ideals. The core group of
the organisation is a rather diverse group; for instance, Philip has
been known to be rather... negative... about Ubuntu, while Mark (one of
the press contacts) has done some activism and translation work for
Ubuntu.
The change of name from OSDEM to FOSDEM was done not because the
organisation's ideas about software were changed overnight by a mail
from Richard Stallman or anyone else from the FSF; but rather, because
they were open-minded enough to understand that having a name which only
says 'Open Source' would be excluding a considerable part of the
community that encompasses
both Free and Open Source people.
This is why the name wasn't changed in FSDEM; it is F
OSDEM.
I'm quite sure that the fact that FOSDEM is so open-minded about many
of the controversial issues that have separated our community over the
years not just Open Source vs Free Software, but so many other
things as well is one of the main reasons why FOSDEM is so popular
today: because everyone, and I truly mean
everyone, will find
something that he or she likes.
That is why I'm so saddened that
some
people
seem to find it necessary to not only whine, but also boycott a
conference, because they believe that FOSDEM should not take money from
a big Free Software/Open Source
contributor, just because they also happen to be a company, and as
such make business deals with Microsoft. Note that I'm not either
defending or condemning Novell's attitude here; but it is a fact that
not everyone in the larger Free and Open Source community feels the same
way about the whole Novell/Microsoft deal (else there wouldn't be an
openSUSE anymore), and as such they still deserve a place on FOSDEM.
Over the history of the organisation of FOSDEM, it's always been a
place where everyone could get their opinion out; whether it be the
opinion that "Free Software Must Rule The World", or that "It's All
About The Way You Do Things"; as long as your opinion is shared by a
large enough number of people in the larger FLOSS community, it is
welcome.
I feel that blocking one organization from sponsoring the event, just
because they have made some deals which a significant group of people,
one which nevertheless does not encompass the whole of the FLOSS
community, disapprove of, would set a dangerous precendent that might
jeopardize the very core of what makes FOSDEM so great: its
impartiality.
Thank god that didn't happen.
What happened in the