On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 09:22:31AM +0200, Dominik George wrote:
I didn't want to, but now that the idea came up that FOSDEM Junior will teach children about freedom and openness:
In the last years, FOSDEM Junior required registration on a hostile platform that had tons of trackers and wanted to share all sorts of information with a few hundred "partners" that "value the privacy" of the children, and some workshops required children to use an Apple or Google smartphone.
Most workshops use free software, but still require registration with the hostile, commercialised platform, and openness definitely does not appear to be a priority at FOSDEM Junior.
Teckids offered help, but we never heard back from FOSDEM.
I think this is an undeservedly negative view. I would even say dishonest. I go there https://codeclub.org/en/clubs/c0468f47-a1a4-43b6-b7f0-170a7d98b30c I click "Use necessary cookies only", I get two cookies: from the domain and from consentcdn.cookiebot.com. "some workshops required children to use an Apple or Google smartphone" - yes, MIT App Inventor is a project which allowed my kid to create a mobile app, it's the outcome of FOSDEM they're most proud. I guess it would work on rooted phone or an Android VM, but, really? You're against *that*?