Drew DeVault has officially lost it [LWN.net]

Drew DeVault has officially lost it

Posted Jan 29, 2025 11:55 UTC (Wed) by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
In reply to: Drew DeVault has officially lost it by notriddle
Parent article: FOSDEM keynote causes concerns

> The third arm of this triangle is that, by demanding that the FOSDEM organizers be more transparent, they force FOSDEM to focus on avoiding controversy instead of on picking the best talks.

They do no such thing. You can weather controversy by being transparent about your decision process, or you can stonewall the people who question your decisions, or you can go out of your way to only put non-controversial talks on the panel in the first place.

Choose wisely.

to post comments

Drew DeVault has officially lost it

Posted Jan 29, 2025 15:41 UTC (Wed) by notriddle (subscriber, #130608) [Link] (1 responses)

You're not answering the actual question. Which one do you do?

1. Investigate the finances of anyone giving a talk at FOSDEM, to make sure they aren't a billionaire?

2. Allow billionaires to give talks at FOSDEM?

3. Accept the hypocrisy of "not allowing" billionaires to give talks at FOSDEM without actually checking?

Drew DeVault has officially lost it

Posted Jan 29, 2025 22:19 UTC (Wed) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

None of the above. The primary question isn't whether some billionaire or other should get the keynote slot, the question is whether their talk (and/or keynote) has enough I'll-go-to-FOSDEM-because-of-this merit to be there in the first place. Which I kindof doubt at this point.

*Then* if I were to decide this I'd balance that merit against the fact that Jack D. has a heap of other venues to spread his opinions around the globe (some of which he sold to a certain somewhat-decent-guy-turned-alt-right-fanatic who shall not be named here), and thus more weight should probably be given to people who don't.

The consideration that mayyybe speakers and/or organizations with more money than most people can even comprehend should be expected to contribute some of that to the event they wish to participate in … well it's in there too but personally I'd put it firmly in third place.