Bonum Certa Men Certa

FOSDEM and Free Speech: Will It Blend?

Some more censorship in FOSDEM "legal" (supremacy of corporate voices over community voices)

Video download link



Summary: IBM -- like Google and Microsoft -- spreads its money to institutions which in turn suppress critics of monopolies, even in the Free software community (which seeks to combat such monopolies and liberate users)

THE legal track at FOSDEM, a European event (well, at least on paper), has long been the subject of much controversy. Of course this controversy is never entertained by the "tech" media, which is hardly media anymore (producing puff pieces isn't journalism but paid-for fluff). It ought to be called FOSDEM US or something along those lines. This year there's some FSFE presence, for a change, but top sponsors of the FSFE are American corporations. That may become a problem for the "E" in FSFE. Expect some potential branching quite soon (due to growing dissatisfaction with the work done by FSFE).



"This year there's some FSFE presence, for a change, but top sponsors of the FSFE are American corporations."What happens when people who are closely involved in this whole "legal" angle aren't just American but also work with (or for) American monopolies? Someone has shared with us the following screenshot which shows IBM defended from criticism amid allegations that GNOME is mostly developed by Red Hat or developed by no other company more than Red Hat (IBM). It's a top contributor, it adds a lot of IBM dependencies (systemd is the most notorious among them), it has much clout in the questionable GNOME Foundation (whose former chiefs move to Microsoft, current chief refuses to fight software patents, and RMS bashing is all too common, even this year). The following seems a bit like censorship and there are potential conflicts (of interest):

Some censorship in FOSDEM legal

Click to view the whole thing or instead zoom in (the chat highlights reveal where it came from, of that we're aware). That's like their official channel of communication now that conferences cannot be done "in person". Censorship arguably becomes even simpler that way.

What the image shows is SFC (US) stepping in to defend IBM (US) from scrutiny. As if they must censor criticism of a money source and suppress the critics themselves; now they have additional tools like a "Code of Conduct" (doing to volunteers and activists what corporations typically do to employees). The above is definitely on-topic a subject, as well as a growing issue amid 'CentOSgate' and IBM's patent bullying (this never ended; not even the Red Hat takeover put an end to it). According to IAM, an IBM megaphone, IBM's patent agenda may be slowing down somewhat [1, 2], but they still lobby for software patents and against patent quality (e.g. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs)). "Data analysis conducted by IAM indicates that IBM is now abandoning US patents due for renewal at the rate of more than 50% a year," IAM has just said. But they still go chasing companies for 'protection money', just like Microsoft does.

It's rather astounding that a European conference would be so thoroughly stacked by American companies (just like last week's IBM-stacked event in Europe) and European entities sponsored mostly by American companies. "Karen and Bradley are quite harmful," an associate told us, alluding to two Americans who worked to oust RMS.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete