January 2021 - FOSDEM - lists.fosdem.org

Online Beer Event?
by Steve Mynott 06 Feb '21

06 Feb '21

Has anyone been thinking of a possible online Beer Event? I've been stockpiling Belgium Beer and was wondering if anyone was on Jitsi or similar? -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott(a)gmail.com> cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5

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Fosdem companion app not working for 2021 edition
by Mathieu Hinderyckx 05 Feb '21

05 Feb '21

Hi! The first application (FOSDEM companion) listed on the website under 'mobile apps' (https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/mobile/) currently does not work for the 2021 schedule. It has an empty schedule and gives an error message upon trying to refresh. Best, Mathieu

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[Mobile schedule apps] Add ICSx5 to the list for Android apps
by Bernhard S. | Play Apps 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

Hello, For the list of apps that can be used to see the schedule of FOSDEM 2021 on Android: https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/mobile/ Android: ICSx⁵ – Subscribe webcal and iCal calendars It's an open source app - It automatically refreshes the list of events every x minutes if there are changes to the schedule. Website: https://icsx5.bitfire.at/ Source code: https://gitlab.com/bitfireAT/icsx5 Download on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.icsdroid Download on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/app/at.bitfire.icsdroid It works perfectly with the provided iCal link for the FOSDEM schedule. Hope that helps :) Thank you, Bernhard -- DAVx⁵ – open-source CalDAV/CardDAV sync for Android WWW: https://www.davx5.com/ News and updates: https://twitter.com/davx5app Support and discussion: https://www.davx5.com/forums PGP 🔑: https://keybase.io/bitfirePlay What's that about? https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org bitfire web engineering GmbH Florastraße 27, 2540 Bad Vöslau, AUSTRIA Commercial register: FN 537762b (Wr. Neustadt) https://www.bitfire.at/

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Mobile schedule apps: Kongress
by Dimitris Kardarakos 30 Jan '21

30 Jan '21

Hello everyone, the schedule of FOSDEM 2021 is also available in Kongress [1]. Kongress is a conference companion application created by the KDE community. It has been created for mobile phones running Linux, but it also works on Linux desktop and Android. More details can be found here [2]. [1] https://invent.kde.org/utilities/kongress [2] https://dimitris.cc/kde/2021/01/28/Kongress_1_0.html All the best, -- Dimitris Kardarakos dimitris.cc

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Sojourner conference companion webapp
by Jarek Lipski 30 Jan '21

30 Jan '21

Hey Everyone! I am happy to announce that Sojourner conference companion progressive web app has been updated to FOSDEM'2021 online edition. You can access it at the usual address: https://fosdem.sojourner.rocks Apart from browsing the latest schedule, searching & bookmarking talks and sharing bookmarks between devices, this year's improvements include: - Watching video stream directly in the app, with possibility to navigate the programme at the same time - Links to Matrix chat rooms associated with each track - Live page showing what's currently happening - Simple navigation between talks within the same track - Removed unnecessary notifications There's a lot of happening on FOSDEM weekend, and now is the perfect time to read the programme and bookmark your favourite talks! Cheers, Jarek Lipski https://jareklipski.com PS1: Feel free to share your feedback and ideas - there's still a chance they will be implemented: https://github.com/loomchild/sojourner-web PS2: If you'd like to watch some talks from last year and see how the video player looks like, please visit https://2020.fosdem.sojourner.rocks

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FOSDEM on PeerTube
by James R. Haigh 28 Jan '21

28 Jan '21

Dear FOSDEM, Will FOSDEM be uploading to PeerTube or similar? If so then how do I access FOSDEM's videos from a video client such as NewPipe?: https://F-Droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe Best regards, James R. Haigh. -- Wealth doesn't bring happiness, but poverty brings sadness. https://wiki.FSFE.org/Fellows/JRHaigh Sent from Debian with Claws Mail, using email subaddressing as an alternative to error-prone heuristical spam filtering. Instant messaging (Jabber): JRHaigh(a)Jabber.Vikings.net

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iOS app for the FOSDEM schedule
by Horst Gutmann 23 Jan '21

23 Jan '21

Hi 🙂 I’ve created a little iOS app last year got viewing the schedule. It was also recently updated to work with the current schedule. The app is called FosdemToGo and is available in the App Store. The code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 and available on GitHub: https://github.com/zerok/fosdem-to-go It would be awesome if you could include it on https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/mobile/ 😊 Thank you and best regards, Horst

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Fwd: [CFP] FOSDEM 2021, RTC devroom, speakers, volunteers neeeded
by FOSDEM RTC Team 13 Jan '21

13 Jan '21

FOSDEM - Real Time Communications devroom CfP ============================================= NOTE: we have extended the deadline but we will give preference to people who submitted earlier when we set the time for each talk. Please submit your proposal ASAP so that you can get your preferred time slot. Overview -------- [FOSDEM](https://fosdem.org) is one of the world's premier meetings of free software developers, with over five thousand people attending each year. FOSDEM 2021 takes place 6-7 February 2021 and for the very first time, it will be online. This document contains information about: - Real-Time Communications developer room (devroom) - speaking opportunities - volunteering New rules for the online edition -------------------------------- This year FOSDEM will be fully online instead of being held in Brussels, here are the most important things to know about this (quite significant) change: - The reference time will be Brussels local time (CET) - Talks will be pre-recorded in advance, and streamed during the event - The Q/A session will be live - A facility will be provided for people watching to chat between themselves - A facility will be provided for people watching to submit questions Call for participation - Real Time Communications (RTC) ------------------------------------------------------- The Real-Time devroom is about all things involving real-time communication, including: XMPP, SIP, WebRTC, telephony, mobile VoIP, codecs, peer-to-peer, privacy and encryption. **We are looking for speakers for the devroom and volunteers who can help manage the scheduling and live Q&A sessions.** The devroom is only on Saturday, 6th of February 2021. To discuss the devroom, volunteer or ask questions, please join the [Free-RTC mailing list](http://lists.freertc.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss). ### Key dates - 20th Dec: Submission deadline (extended to 8 January) - 24th Dec: Announcement of selected talks - 15th Jan: Presentations upload deadline - 6th & 7th Feb: Conference dates (online) - 6th Feb: RTC devroom date (online) ### Speaking opportunities Note: if you used FOSDEM Pentabarf before, please use the same account/username Real-Time Communications devroom: deadline 23:59 UTC on 20th of December. Please use the [Pentabarf](https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM21/) system to submit a talk proposal for the devroom. On the "General" tab, please look for the "Track" option and choose "Real Time Communications devroom". ### First-time speaking? FOSDEM devrooms are a welcoming environment for people who have never given a talk before. Please feel free to contact the devroom administrators personally if you would like to ask any questions about it. This year this is more true than ever, being able to record your presentation offline without an audience in front can greatly help build up one's confidence! ### Submission guidelines The Pentabarf system will ask for many of the essential details. Please remember to re-use your account from previous years if you have one. In the "Submission notes", please tell us about: - The purpose of your talk - Any other talk applications (devrooms, lightning talks, main track) - Availability constraints and special needs You can use HTML and links in your bio, abstract and description. If you maintain a blog, please consider providing us with the URL of a feed with posts tagged for your RTC-related work. We will be looking for relevance to the conference and devroom themes, presentations aimed at developers of free and open source software about RTC-related topics. Please feel free to suggest a duration between 20 minutes and 55 minutes but note that the final decision on talk durations will be made by the devroom administrators based on the number of received proposals. As the two previous devrooms have been combined into one, we may decide to give shorter slots than in previous years so that more speakers can participate. Please note FOSDEM aims to record and live-stream all talks. The CC-BY license is used. ### Recording help The devroom organization is able to provide help with recording your session. The recording would be performed at a scheduled time with one of us, so you won't be alone giving your presentation. Minimal edits will be possible, but the ideal plan is to record it in one shot. Thanks Dan Jenkins for providing us with the means to do this! Volunteers needed ----------------- To make the devroom run successfully, we are looking for volunteers. This year many things be done for the first time, so all the help we can get is more than welcome. Spread the word and discuss --------------------------- If you know of any mailing lists where this CfP would be relevant, please forward this document. If this devroom excites you, please blog or microblog about it, especially if you are submitting a talk. If you regularly blog about RTC topics, please send details about your blog to the planet site administrators: - All projects https://planet.freertc.org planet(a)freertc.org - XMPP https://planet.jabber.org ralphm(a)ik.nu - SIP https://planet.sip5060.net planet(a)sip5060.net Please also link to the Planet sites from your own blog or web site as this helps everybody in the free real-time communications community. Contact ------- For any private queries, contact us directly using the address **fosdem-rtc-admin(a)freertc.org** and for any other queries please ask on the [Free-RTC mailing list](http://lists.freertc.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss). The devroom administration team: - Saúl Ibarra Corretgé <s(a)saghul.net> - Ralph Meijer <ralphm(a)ik.nu> - Daniel-Constantin Mierla <miconda(a)gmail.com> - Daniel Pocock <daniel(a)pocock.pro> - Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com>

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Google, FSFE, safety of women and volunteers
by Daniel Pocock 12 Jan '21

12 Jan '21

Hi all, This month it appears that at least two women (I hope I haven't missed any others) have spoken up about their experiences with Google and FSFE. FOSDEM has been accepting money from these organizations and maybe now is the time to reject their sponsorship. For those who don't know, FSFE receives significant[1] funding from Google, a model that has been compared to tobacco industry sock puppets[2]. Timnit Gebru was told to censor[3] a research paper. She refused and she was sacked. She had the courage to speak up. Susanne Eiswirt and Galia Mancheva were the only two female permanent employees at FSFE. According to another courageous blog[4], they spoke about why women are paid less and they were almost immediately fired, both of them. The intimidation described in those blogs is comparable[5] to the intimidation I faced after volunteers decided to elect me as a community representative. As I was never an employee of Google or FSFE, as I was elected, they couldn't sack me. After I resigned, they have been spreading defamation, sabotaging my contributions to other projects like Debian, sending me threats, just as described in Galia's blog. I first met FSFE at FOSDEM. I would hate to see any other visitor or volunteer suffer what Galia and other people, especially women, have described. During my time as fellowship representative, I frequently heard from people who didn't just quit FSFE, they quit free software altogether because their experience with FSFE was so bad. It is the duty of any elected representative to report that. Many free software organizations made a big fuss about banning Jacob Appelbaum yet /not one woman ever took him to court/. While I don't want to deter anybody with a genuine case from speaking up, I'm convinced that at least some of the claims against him appear to be exaggerated[6]. In comparison, multiple women have showed significant courage facing Google and FSFE in the courtroom. Therefore, should Google, FSFE and Matthias Kirschner face the same treatment as Appelbaum and be publicly shamed and excluded at every opportunity? Regards, Daniel -- Debian Developer https://danielpocock.com 1. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html 2. https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/11/what-big-tech-and-big-tobacco-research-f… 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru 4. https://write.as/malinagalina/i-took-fsfe-to-court 5. https://fsfellowship.eu/court-case-fsfe-women-and-volunteers-face-modern-da… 6. https://danielpocock.com/debian-falsified-harassment-claims-appelbaum-expul…

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Disenfranchised by Google
by J. R. Haigh 12 Jan '21

12 Jan '21

Dear FOSDEM, I'm not sure where the best place to express this is but I understand that FOSDEM accepts sponsorship from Google, so I'm trying here. This year, Google has deliberately broken support for various Free Software applications that I use: Uzbl Web browser; Claws Mail; and NewPipe YouTube client for Android. They have also aggressively encouraged the Web developer community to make changes that break support for minimalist Web browsers – ‘mobile friendly’ websites have become very unfriendly to my browsing experience, with floating elements that obscure most of the screen and don't scroll out of the way. I know that Google do support a lot of good projects through their Summer Of Code and such, but I'm doubtful that this justifies the damage that they are causing to the Web and Free Software. I've got so fed-up of most Web pages looking like a pile of crap, I mean broken overlay elements and text scattered sparsely, that I've actually started exploring Gopherspace recently. Very nice and fast – none of this laggy broken mess that Google pushes! Since earlier this year, every time I launch Claws Mail, I get an authentication error on my Gmail account and my alternate email receives an automated email from Google about a “Critical security alert for your linked Google Account”, requiring review via a Web browser. However, when I login via my Web browser, I get a message saying that I need to use one of the Big Four: Chrome; Firefox; Safari; or IE. I used to use Firefox, but they dropped support for legacy addons (most of which I couldn't find sufficient replacements) and made changes to align with Google's agenda, which seems to be to disenfranchise people like me. After all, Mozilla also accepts a huge amount of sponsorship from Google, and I don't think that it's healthy for the interests of software freedom. I used to be able to watch YouTube using Uzbl-browser or NewPipe, and of course old versions of Firefox. Yes, Firefox is one of the Big Four too, but Google has that covered: they've dropped support for the old versions that I like. I have been using NewPipe to view PeerTube/Framasoft in the meantime whilst I wait for NewPipe to catch-up with Google's changes, but there's not a lot on there that interests me. Also, a few years ago, I noticed that most emails in my Spam folder in Gmail were legitimate and quite a lot of them, and that of these legitimate emails, there was a strong bias towards blocking emails that were more alternative – about sustainability, community, minimalism, or indeed Free Software. Those black-box algorithms are contrary to software freedom. Naturally I wanted to disable Gmail's spam filtering, or at least the 30-day automatic deletions, but there's no option to do either of those. This was my biggest driver for seeking an alternative email provider, eventually settling on one that I'm happy with (Runbox). However, it does still concern me that the freedoms of people who cannot switch to a paid email service for whatever reason are being eroded by Gmail. Maybe they can't afford it, would rather spend the money elsewhere, or maybe it's just too much hassle to switch their email address – that doesn't make it okay for Google to take advantage of them. I see from family members who currently still use Gmail that Google's black-box algorithms have thoroughly invaded the Inbox, with automatic sorting into Social, Promotion, and Important. Given that I was finding some important emails in my Spam folder, I don't trust Google's biases here at all. The general trend is that Google is having a big impact on disenfranchising the minimalist software that I wish to use, and in-turn has a big impact on disenfranchising me as an individual Free Software user. Actually not just as a user – I used to develop an Android application, but there were bugs and other obstacles in the API which I reported at Google Code. The detailed and well-formatted issue reports sat idle for years before eventually being automatically marked as “stale”, and eventually Google killed Code altogether. Later versions of the API actually broke other aspects of my application whilst fixing nothing. I never returned to Android development. Having been disenfranchised both as a Free Software developer and as a Free Software user, it is my view that what is most ‘stale’ here is Google's attitude to software freedom! I've not managed to find any way to complain to Google – their contact/support pages took me round in a circular loop. I was looking-forward to discussing these issues with them at FOSDEM, but it's not on this year, at least not in a way that allows the general public to talk to corporate giants at stalls. Hence why I'm sending this to the main FOSDEM mailing list. I urge FOSDEM to review its future sponsorship deals with Google, as I feel that with their current bad behaviour, endorsing Google unconditionally is contrary to the interests of software freedom. With best intentions and regards, James R. Haigh. -- Wealth doesn't bring happiness, but poverty brings sadness. https://wiki.FSFE.org/Fellows/JRHaigh Sent from Debian with Claws Mail, using email subaddressing as an alternative to error-prone heuristical spam filtering.

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