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FOSDEM 2026: democracy panel, GNOME & Sonny Piers modern slavery experiment

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 18, 2026

Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.

19:30 Sun, 18 Jan 2026

FOSDEM 2026 will host a panel on Unique Challenges in Elected Governing Bodies for FOSS.

Looking at the profiles of the five panel members, it is not clear that any of them have ever been elected to anything.

On ANZAC day, 25 April 2017, the Fellowship elected me in the FSFE. I subsequently resigned in disgust with the mismanagement of the organization. My decision to resign has been validated when a female employee took the president to court for harassment and stalking.

Yet the more pressing issue is the case of Sonny Piers and the ongoing tragedy of the GNOME Foundation.

In 2024, the GNOME Foundation Discourse forum was used to publish a highly defamatory statement inciting people to attack Sonny and his family. Over 21,000 people looked at it so far.

Yet it doesn't tell us what Sonny actually did to deserve this public whipping.

A quick search finds photos of victims like Sonny being subject to public stoning in places like Iran:

What is the point of having the panel discussion at FOSDEM if every serious person who gets elected to a board runs the risk of being publicly whipped and stoned by the snobby set?

The libel mentions something "for cause" but without telling us what the cause is. If the "cause" was sincere, they would have reported it to the police. Therefore, if they did not involve the police, if there is no other document to prove what happened, we have to assume it is a political cause, in other words, they are trying to ensure Sonny stays quiet about the money paid to the Albanian woman or something along those lines.

Robert McQueen and GNOME are enforcing modern slavery

In July 2025, Robert McQueen uses the GNOME Discourse forum to make another evil libel attack on Sonny Piers. Like every other post that has appeared over the last couple of years, reading this crap does not tell us what Sonny actually did to get whipped in the first place.

... the Board voted to rescind Sonny’s indefinite suspension from the GNOME project ...

... the Board also voted that Sonny will not be eligible for appointment in any position of authority within the Foundation, or to act as an agent on behalf of the organization, or to have paid work with the GNOME Foundation. This means that he will be unable to be a committee member, director, officer, staff member or contractor, or officially represent the GNOME Foundation to other entities. The Board resolution put these restrictions in place on an indefinite basis.

This is modern slavery, there is no doubt about it. The proof is clear: developers can not take back all the years we already put in, so why should some snob like McQueen come along and forcefully take away a developer's right to speak, without giving the victim some payment for the loss of their rights?

Under copyright law, which is crystal clear, every joint author of a copyrighted work has absolutely equal rights to share the money and absolutely equal rights to respect and recognition.

When McQueen writes that Sonny Piers can now continue contributing his intellectual property but never get anything in return, he is reducing Sonny to the status of a slave. It is that simple.

McQueen also writes:

the Board has also been working to ensure that this type of situation does not happen again in the future

If they don't tell us what questions Sonny Piers asked in the first place, how can we be sure that nobody else will ask the same question next week, maybe even during the question time at FOSDEM?

Remember the words that Sonny wrote himself:

The process and decision shocked me. I know people are looking for answers, but I want to protect people involved and the project/foundation. It was never an interpersonal conflict for me.

Now if Sonny Piers had done something that we all understand to be bad, he would know what he did wrong and he would not be shocked at the severe whipping he got.

But what Sonny Piers is hinting at with the word "interpersonal" is that he asked a question about why the GNOME Foundation is giving money to Albanian women when so many other people are working without any pay and without any royalties for our copyright interest.

If the president of the local tennis club took money out of the bank account and took two Albanian women on a trip to Tequila, Mexico all the other club members would immediately ask questions about it. Yet GNOME actually did the Tequila thing. When the tennis club conducted the annual general meeting, everybody shouting at the committee would be breaking the Code of Conduct but they are right to do so.

What we see in the GNOME project today is a case of victim-offender reversal. A manager or executive member gives money to an Albanian woman and instead of punishing the man who wrote the cheque, the group punishes the responsible people who asked questions about the money/women.

Stoning executions in Iran

Code of Conduct gaslighting is not only a feature of modern slavery in GNOME and Debianism. Iran has a Code of Conduct too. Women and volunteers have to obey to make a safe space for the overlords. █

Woman being prepared for public execution

FOSDEM 2026: democracy panel, GNOME & Sonny Piers modern slavery experiment

Robert McQueen and GNOME are enforcing modern slavery

Stoning executions in Iran

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