FOSDEM Talks Are Vanishing
The US-centric FOSDEM is about to kick off very soon. But it is apparently censoring some talks already. It is not clear why. The FSF has several talks there and the F in the name "FOSDEM" exists because of the FSF's founder.
Someone has just told us that the "FOSDEM SFC Openwrt talk vanished".
We are still trying to understand what's going on there. "Do we know why it was removed? Was an inquiry made?" (Us reaching out to potential people in the know)
They no longer seem to be taking money from Microsoft and/or its tentacles (unlike past year).
This is 2025:
Full list of sponsors is there too. Compare to last year or two years ago or three years ago. Four years ago was the first time in a long while that Microsoft was no longer a sponsor (via "GitHub"). GitHub became a "sponsor" only after Microsoft had taken over it (they skipped a year), not before, except in 2017, 2016, and 2015 (but not 2014 or 2013 or any prior year).
Notice how most of the FOSDEM sponsors are American companies (not a new problem or an absurd observation). FOSDEM takes place in Europe, but many of its talks and even panel discussions are dominated (sometimes 100%) by American people.
Will there be a "FOSDEM Europe" some day? Unlike American lobbyism in Brussels?
Are talks being 'culled' though? Is there "Social Engineering" going on? Some people are given "more speech" (or a platform/audience) than others? Who gets to decide on it?
Some years ago we showed how SFC (US) was censoring criticism of IBM (US) at FOSDEM (Europe). Follow the money. How dare Europeans criticise an American company in an event in Europe??? IBM is the top sponsor of FOSDEM - same as prior years. The other top sponsor is also American - one that dislikes the "F". █