FOSDEM is a place where “free and open source software” really means “open source software” and “the “F” in FOSDEM is a token gesture to the free software movement” if you believe FOSDEM organiser Philip Paeps. If that’s so, I’m amazed they can claim “to promote the awareness” of free software with a straight face.
I’m not going to FOSDEM again because there are better value-for-money events around now, but I do understand the motives of the various anti-Novell campaigners. The Boycott Novell site linked to my explanation of Boycotts a few years back.
I really don’t agree that “A conference just is not “complete’ without corporate schwag and presence.” Presence? I don’t really enjoy being jumped by salesmen. Schwag? There was one long-term useful item in my last conference pack, that was from an association and I would probably have bought a slightly better one if I hadn’t been given it.
So, I really don’t understsand why FOSDEM are annoying people in part because they like branded cheap junk. I suspect most of it ends up in the bins before long. I mean, who needs a non-obvious bottle-opener? I have one on the waiters’ friend, another with a nice handle, one on my penknife, one on my wife’s penknife and even one on the can opener’s handle. There are probably a few more in my home and bottles aren’t even so hard to open without a special tool anyway!
Anyway, if you’re going, I hope you have a safe journey. Maybe you could mention Glyn Moody’s summary of the FOSDEM controversy to some people there. Call me when you’re organising a trip to something like a drupalcon, wordcamp or LUGRadio Live.
Finally someone says what needs to be said!
Philip posts a few personal points of view on his personal blog. He makes somewhat of an effort to label them as such. The “FOS” in “FOSDEM” still stands for “free and open source”. There still is no swag to be found at FOSDEM.
You say “there are better value-for-money events around now”. I hardly see how we can substantially improve the practical value-for-money factor without fundamentally changing the concept. I think we can say we have high quality speakers. We’re free entrance already. We try to keep other financial barriers low (travel, accomodation). We’re easily reachable from most of Europe. We try to be welcoming by talking to developers in their native tongue.
So… could you elaborate on your “better value-for-money” statement? Is there a different way FOSDEM could more successfully be an accessible free and open source developer conference?
I know Philip as well as several of the other people in the FOSDEM organisation (including Mark). They are a diverse bunch of people where each has their own (sometimes strong) opinions about some items in the open source & free software landscape (and outside that), but they still cooperate all together to make FOSDEM a fantastic happening.
The result is that both the Free Software Foundation (Europe) & Novell get their chance to present their story.
Bottle-openers? At what point did FOSDEM start distributing bottle-openers. Have I been missing out? In fact, other than the t-shirts, which incidentally I do occasionally wear, what is the corporate schwag you are referring to? In the last four I’ve had a bag with a t-shirt, a guide to the schedule/map and a few fliers from the sponsors.
It’s remarkably non-commercial for a conference of its size, so I really think you are depriving yourself unnecessarily. Or would be if you weren’t already not going due to poor value (I’m not sure I buy this either when you consider that it’s free to attend and Eurostar plus a cheap hostel would be less than the just the attendance fees of UKUUG and similar).
Thanks for all the comments. I do realise that Philip was giving a personal view, but he is one of the organisers, shot Rui down in flames and the official site doesn’t contradict any of his views, as far as I found when I checked it.
The bottle-opener example was in the LugRadioLive pack (linked from the article), but I’ve had many similar utter wastes of resources in the past and I’m pretty sure some were from FOSDEM. If there’s no schwag at FOSDEM, why is Philip linking corporate “blind eye” syndrome with a desire for schwag?
T-shirts are more useful than some and I wear some of the ones I’ve been given at conferences – a certain one usually only gets worn for painting, though. Some of those t-shirts are from unfair trade so I’m not sure they’re that great as gifts.
I don’t think FOSDEM is great value because there are few of my favourite projects there, Eurostar books up well ahead, I lose one or two days of work, it’s too far away for a day trip and I’m a bit too old for cheap hostels any more. I don’t think UKUUG is great value either, for what it’s worth. LRL was great value and there are other great-value events around.
The killer blow is the claim that supporting FOSDEM also means we’re accepting sponsors like O’Reilly (Lisp-banners and OSI-backers), Novell (MS-helpers), Nokia (didn’t they campaign for software patents?), LPI (more FSF-replacement-wannabes and friends of pro-swpatenters) and so on… well, it’s better not to support those sort of people. If only FOSDEM would do like Rui asked and say “if the community raises X, we’ll drop Novell” (for some value of X near Novell’s contribution) and so on, then at least the conscientious objectors would’ve had a fair chance at battle.
@Graham Bleach – your website says you live in North-West London, so I guess you can use the much-cheaper early-morning Eurostar departures (£29.50 for FOSDEM weekend according to Eurostar.com just now) and late-night arrivals back. Trains from WsM to London start about 6am and take 2h30, making the cheapest usable fare £64.50 – just enough that the price difference is less than most London stop-overs. If I ever need to arrive in France or Belgium in the morning, it costs me more.
Looking further ahead, the much-advertised £59 returns only exist for WsM travellers if we’re booking now for late May. So, to get cheap Eurostar to FOSDEM, I would’ve probably needed to book something like September or early October 2008 – OK, but the call for participation went out to the mailing list on 5 November.
In short, please don’t work out FOSDEM’s value-for-money using the advertised Eurostar price for all of the UK. It’s very much a special case for a few, like Londoners and sleeper travellers.
Actually my calculations were based on paying ~ £110 for the Eurostar, which is what I paid for going out on the Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday evening. Since you don’t think that UKUUG, which I used as a comparison, is good value anyway, it’s probably not worth discussing the Eurostar fare structure in more detail.
Yes, it’s cheaper and more convenient for Londoners. The money we save is equivalent to about a week’s worth of the extra living costs we pay. I’ve made my choice to live here and it’s worked out fine for me.
My attendance or otherwise is based primarily on how useful and interesting it is likely to be. I could stay away from every conference sponsored by a company that has done something I disapproved of; I’d end up attending roughly zero events and I doubt anyone would notice.
I go to FOSDEM, I don’t take useless junk from the corporate stands, I meet interesting people and I have a great time. It’s whatever you want to make of it.
Incidentally, what spurred me to comment originally was the mention of the bottle-openers from LRL in a paragraph about FOSDEM, drawing the reader to incorrectly infer that the FOSDEM organisers give everyone useless corporate junk, which they don’t. I think you could have been clearer that you haven’t attended FOSDEM recently and were using LRL as an example of what you thought might go on there.
[…] again because there are better value-for-money events around now” right near the start of an article on here. But on Wednesday, I was surprised to learn from another website that I “find it necessary to […]
@Graham Bleach – thanks for the explanation and no, we probably won’t agree on FOSDEM’s value.
I do agree with you about one aspect of whether to stay away or not. If you’re staying away because of a sponsor, that’s useless unless you publicise it. See my theory of boycotts linked from the article above. I have a lot more patience with people who boycott noisily than those who give things the silent treatment – I mean, what’s the point of boycotting secretly, really? Even if you’re right, it doesn’t help the community.
My last FOSDEM was 2 or 3 years ago. There seemed to be a bit of useless corporate junk about then and it sounded like there was more now, from Philip’s strong defence of it. Maybe that’s not the case and someone can let me know when you get back? 😉