Aral BalkanFeb 2, 2018

I want to make one thing very clear regarding #fosdem2018 #fosdem

A conference on freedom-and-human-rights-respecting technology should not have a titan of #SurveillanceCapitalism like Google as sponsor. The good people in our community shouldn’t have to choose between having a platform to meet up at and having their legitimacy usurped by association to whitewash such companies. I’m attending under protest to meet and chat to some lovely members of the community.

Google doesn’t belong there.

Show threadBob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅
@aral Yes. I don't remember if they were sponsors in previous years. They might have been. In the more distant past, pre-Snowden, Google was considered more favorably. But now they're just a giant spyware company which has long since abandoned support for open standards.
Aral Balkan (@[email protected])

13.6K Posts, 3.21K Following, 8.35K Followers · I make Small Tech.

Feb 2, 2018 at 10:20amWeb
Show threadFelipe M.Feb 2, 2018
@bob @aral They have been sponsors for a while: https://archive.fosdem.org/2007/
FOSDEM | Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting

Show threadBob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅Feb 2, 2018
@fmartingr @aral Back then they still supported xmpp and rss
Aral Balkan (@[email protected])

13.6K Posts, 3.21K Following, 8.35K Followers · I make Small Tech.

Show thread☠️ Grumpy OldmanFeb 3, 2018
@bob @aral since 2007 https://archive.fosdem.org/2007/