Jack Dorsey talk at FOSDEM 2025 may lead to protest
Jack Dorsey, who previously owned Twitter and now runs Block, will be giving a talk at FOSDEM 2025 entitled “Infusing Open Source Culture into Company DNA: A Conversation with Jack Dorsey and Manik Surtani, Block’s head of Open Source” and some people don’t like having a billionaire giving a talk at an open-source event and plan to host a protest.
I recently wrote about my own FOSDEM 2025 schedule focusing on embedded systems topics, and while the event is usually non-controversial, I was startled by a tweet by FOSDEM organizers who issued a “statement on planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025”. I eventually found out that it was related to a post by Drew DeVault who did not appreciate having a billionaire talk during the open-source-focused event.
The talk is planned in the Janson venue which is the biggest at the event with a capacity of up to 1,500 people and will be live-streamed to a worldwide audience. Some of the complaints include “selling the platform [Twitter] out to the far right”, “Dorsey presumably being platformed in Janson because his blockchain bullshit company is a main sponsor of FOSDEM”, and “billionaires are not welcome at FOSDEM”.
