Hi Daniel, At 2021-01-10Sun23:44:45+01, Daniel Pocock sent:

[…] I notice that the messages we both sent to the FOSDEM mailing list about Google were held in moderation

Yes, I noticed that too – it was nice to see that when the moderation queue was eventually checked, I was not the only one who had criticised Google and questioned FOSDEM's acceptance of their sponsorship. As I was unaware of your email until last night, it shows that we both raised concern of Google independently, as we've not corresponded with each other since quite a few years prior to this.

for 2 weeks and only released tonight, 10 January, on a Sunday night.

Don't read too much into the timing; people get busier over Christmas and New Year and the moderation check was prompted by me emailing a FOSDEM staff member after a week and a half from having sent my own email.

It is likely that date-sorting will hide them from the majority of people.

Thankfully, though, replies bring them back into the picture for those who missed the delayed messages.

It is an odd coincidence, both of our messages delayed/censored, both of our messages mention a sponsor, Google.

It did cross my mind as to whether FOSDEM might be using Google services somewhere in the pipeline that subjected our alternative/critical messages to the biased algorithms that seem to discriminate against alternative messages. I'm curious to know. Of course, Google's algorithms may well be not involved at all. Google's are not the only algorithms that are causing filter bubbles and discrimination problems – I could list several other giants subtly exerting their power with their black-box algorithms – but Google is having a more direct impact on my life than probably all of its competitors combined. Perhaps because of their semifriendly relationship with the Free Software ecosystem that I've been involved in since 2008, I've therefore been more involved with Google's services in the past 13 years. My old Gmail address is the last Google service that I still sort of depend on transitionally. However, I can't get away from the high prevalence of Gmail accounts in use by other people, and so I'm still subject to Google's black-box discrimination in emails that I send to other people.

My own message is now visible[3] in the archive, please check if it is hidden by algorithms in your inbox.

I disabled all spam filtering possible in Runbox settings shortly after switching a few years ago, and I don't have any spam filtering enabled in Claws Mail either. I use subaddressing as an alternative to heuristics. Your message did of course reach me.

The email I sent is about the safety of women, this is particularly important as multiple women were brave enough to speak up about Google

I didn't know about those issues but it's great that they were brave enough to raise them.

and FSFE in December 2020.

I don't know what's gone wrong here, but there are many people who work hard for the FSFE who I like very much. I don't want to defend any abuse of women, but I don't think it's right that everyone involved with the FSFE be tarred with the same brush. (You seemed to focus on my signature, so I'm coming back to it out-of-order down here now, especially seeing as it follows on here…) At 2021-01-10Sun23:44:45+01, Daniel Pocock sent:

On [30/12/2020 23:50], J. R. Haigh wrote:

...

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.

We are not really Fellows any more, FSFE demoted all of us and removed[1] the Fellowship from their constitution.

I know, but the redirect remains and I don't care to lengthen my signature by changing it to https://wiki.FSFE.org/Supporters/JRHaigh , especially seeing as I too liked the FSFE Fellowship.

This was done to discredit all of us, but especially me, as Fellows had elected me as your representative.

I vaguely remember you telling me years ago. I'm not sure where we go from here, though. We can't change the past. Google is causing us problems right now though, so I think that it's better to focus on Google.

You mention Debian. Debian received two payments of $300,000, total $600,000. One payment was from Handshake Foundation, they refuse to publicly disclose[2] the other payment came from Google.

And I notice that you mentioned in your other email that FSFE receives funding from Google too. I was not explicitly aware of either of those (or had forgotten maybe), but it also doesn't surprise me much as I am vaguely aware that Google has their fingers in a lot of pies in the Free Software community and elsewhere. It's absolutely nothing to Google's billions to splash around a few hundred thousand dollars here and there, yet it gives them a lot of influence over these relatively small organisations, projects, and individuals. I think that it's unfair to compare Google and FSFE or Debian as equals. If a nasty problem is to be exported between Google and another organisation, and that organisation is not another giant, then most likely Google is the one exporting the problem to the nongiant. It doesn't justify the problem for the smaller organisation but if you want to tackle it then you surely ought to focus on the giant. Also, I imagine that things like corporate espionage or successful covert smears are virtually impossible going from a tiny organisation to a giant, whereas the reverse seems very likely. So I'm inclined to examine the details of the allegations against the smaller organisation more thoroughly, as the giants have excellent capacity to convincingly master false details. Even Mozilla, which is pretty huge but accepts huge amounts of funding from Google and seems to follow Google's regime – I would say that Mozilla is still the much lesser evil as compared to Google.

At the same time, on the same day, 20 September 2018, Debian also joined FSFE in seeking to viciously discredit the winner of the FSFE Fellowship election, myself.

Curious!! But again, I'm not sure what to do about it now. Meanwhile, Google is continuing to cause me daily problems. Most emails that I send (of which a majority are to Gmail addresses) don't get a reply and I don't get immediate feedback, if at all, of whether my message has gone to their spam/junk folders. This is especially a problem during the lockdowns as I'm having much less opportunity to ask people whether they received my emails. The silent exclusion dictated by these black-box algorithms is hard-felt, now. Most websites that I visit from search results, some of which I cannot avoid, work against my minimalist browsing patterns, as a direct or indirect result of Google's analytics, advertising, ReCAPTCHA v2 and especially v3, SEO, or Material guidelines for a particularly rigid vision of mobile browsing designed to immerse but which I find stressfully claustrophobic, as if up-close with obfuscated ‘micronavigation’, and especially claustrophobic when floating elements obscure a majority of the screen, which happens quite often now. Desktop mode tends to help me avoid the claustrophobic navigation where available, but even then, this doesn't eliminate floating elements or filters or most of the other issues. Many years ago I had an argument about accessibility with a local Web developer who said that she would override desktop mode if she could. The Big Four browsers allow accessibility to be almost entirely at the mercy of the Web developer, not the user in need of it. That's not software freedom. Both Google's influence on email and Google's influence on the Web are daily problems for me, and I suppose that the Android problems are too, seeing as I'm not in a position to fix daily irritations of my OCD, like disappearing scrollbars, or floating action buttons obscuring the text or whatever underneath them. Google has dictated these Material interface features into my life and they simply don't work for me. Not just Material design, the low-power and critical-power notifications waking the screen to tell my pocket so and stays on until either I notice or I lose my last 15% or 5% of battery charge to a warmed pocket, especially quickly if I last used the camera. Background applications that I'm using being killed. The list goes on, and I simply don't have the capacity to fix these problems myself. Even when I've been thoroughly focused on getting into Android development many years ago (2012), Google made me more new problems than the problems that I had managed to solve for myself. They are a powerhouse producing a torrent of changes that work in their own profit-driven interests, which are typically contrary to software freedom. Best regards, James. -- 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.

Call me an 'opportunist' if you want, but it isn't all bad ;)

Unawareness of IETF RFCs is bad

Op 11/01/2021 om 19:56 schreef J. R. Haigh:

Providing that they know. And if FOSDEM is to represent the Free Software community in any way then they have a responsibility to allow people to challenge misbehaviours of their sponsors.

As far as I can tell, no one from FOSDEM has lifted a finger to try and stop you from saying what you are saying.  Someone suggested this isn't the place to discuss these matters.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.  I think this mailinglist is what the suscribers make of it.  Having been a member of the core organizing team (I'm not anymore), I can say this: We obviously didn't agree with everything said on the list, nor did we disagree with everything.  But we've never tried to stop a discussion.  I doubt that attitude has changed.  The relationship with sponsors was (and as far as I know, still is): sponsors give us money and in return they get some room for "advertising".   They do not have a say in content, nor do they get a booth or whatever (at least not because they are sponsors; it does happen that a sponsor has a booth, but that's on the merits of the booth, not because of money). Personally, I've never seen sponsorship at FOSDEM as an endorsement of any kind.  They just "buy" a little space at the infodesk and in the booklet.  If BMW wants to do that (which happened once): fine.  If google wants to do that: also fine.  If someone wants to spend alot of money to have a little corner in the booklet to wish his mother a happy birthday: whatever floats your boat.  As long as in your relationship with FOSDEM as a sponsor, you don't colour outside the lines.   FOSDEM is a conference is for open source developpers.  I don't think it's FOSDEM's place to try and say who are "the good guys" and who are "the bad guys".  Just as it isn't FOSDEM's place to try and prevent someone else to  do so (provided they do it in a civil way, that doesn't disrupt the event or causes some kind of physical danger or something).  But again, this is my opinion. Other people might have other opinions. Koert

Hi, just my 2c: maybe it's time to bump up the visibility of the donations page instead? I mean, not everyone has money to spare, and I wouldn't want to suggest they have to. But the more donations are taken, the less sponsorship is necessary, and the less this kind of discussion has to happen. This would provide for some kind of organic middle ground emerging. I sincerely doubt that donations will make all that difference, but would be happy to be proven wrong. But since I was just looking for a donation page and had to go through a couple of pages before finding an IBAN, I can with certainty tell you that donating could be easier! You can even make donations a "sponsorship light" - similar to how on petition websites you can agree to have your name published, and how on crowdfunding sites you can choose a funding level. The downside of this is either manual effort (ugh) or interfacing with some kind of immediate payment provider (ugh). Just throwing some ideas here, nobody has to feel obliged to pick them up :) Jens On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 10:44:43PM +0100, Nicolas Pettiaux wrote:

Thanks Koert. I have helped with the organization since OSDEM (= the very first edition, on the Plaine campus) in 2000.

I fully agree with your position and wording.

« FOSDEM is a conference is for free and open source developers. I don't think it's FOSDEM's place to try and say who are "the good guys" and who are "the bad guys".  Just as it isn't FOSDEM's place to try and prevent someone else to  do so (provided they do it in a civil way, that doesn't disrupt the event or causes some kind of physical danger or something).  But again, this is my opinion. Other people might have other opinions. »

Best regards,

Nicolas

-- *Nicolas Pettiaux*,phd - gsm +32.496.24.55.01 - nicolas@pettiaux.be

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_______________________________________________ FOSDEM mailing list FOSDEM@lists.fosdem.org https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/fosdem

-- 1.21 Jiggabytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody.

At 2021-01-11Mon22:59:51+00, J. R. Haigh sent:

[…] I just want them to stop encroaching on my life in ways that I cannot get away from.

For the record, this oneway email from Google is what I still get almost each day that I try to access my Gmail account (account details redacted): At 2021-01-10Sun00:56:02GMT, Google <no-reply@accounts.google.com> sent:

Your account <recovery email address> is listed as the recovery email for <Gmail address>. Don't recognise this account? Click here <https://accounts.google.com /AccountDisavow?adt=REDACTED> [image: Google] Sign-in attempt was blocked for your linked Google Account

<Gmail address> Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your account from a non-Google app. Google blocked them, but you should check what happened. Review your account activity to make sure that no one else has access. Check activity <https://accounts.google.com /AccountChooser?Email=<Gmail address>&continue=https://myaccount.google.com/alert/nt/REDACTED> You can also see security activity https://myaccount.google.com/notifications You received this email to let you know about important changes to your Google Account and services. © 2020 Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

This started happening early 2020 (circa March) when they decided that “non-Google” applications should be blocked by default. That in itself is bad enough for software freedom, but at the same time (as far as I'm aware) the account activity settings were removed on the Free Software browsers that I use, which either prevents me from reviewing my account activity or forces me to use software which I do not wish to use. I suppose that the next step is to write to their USA postal address about it. I've had to start using postal mail a lot more during the lockdowns, so it's about time that I learn what stamps I need in order to send international mail. If I get nowhere with that then I'll consider sponsoring a future FOSDEM myself to raise awareness of issues that I've been unable to resolve by then, and in doing so, helping to support FOSDEM too. I really like FOSDEM. I mean you all no harm. Best regards, James. -- 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. (

[…] Sent from NixOS with Claws Mail, using email subaddressing as an alternative to error-prone heuristical spam filtering.

P.s.: I've not actually used NixOS for a few years; this mistake was due to an old preset that I was unable to fix while I still had a compose window open, and forgot to correct manually that time.)