# No billionaires at FOSDEM

DevFeed: [No billionaires at FOSDEM](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/no-billionaires-at-fosdem-20802.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://drewdevault.com/blog/No-Billionares-at-FOSDEM-please/>)

Author: January

Published: 2025-01-16T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Drew DeVault](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/drew-devault.md>)

Topics: [FOSDEM](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/fosdem.md>), [foss](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/foss.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [Blockchain](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/blockchain.md>), [Fediverse](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/fediverse.md>), [X (Twitter)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/twitter.md>)

Tags: [blockchain](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/blockchain.md>), [ceo](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ceo.md>), [elon-musk](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/elon-musk.md>), [event](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/event.md>), [fosdem](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/fosdem.md>), [foss](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/foss.md>), [keynote](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/keynote.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [twitter](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/twitter.md>)

## AI overview

This opinion article argues that FOSDEM should not give its keynote platform to Jack Dorsey. It connects the criticism to Dorsey's former role at Twitter, the impact of Twitter's sale on the fediverse and free software communities, and Block's sponsorship of FOSDEM. The article also notes that Dorsey's talk was later cancelled.

## Source excerpt

Update: Dorsey's talk was cancelled! See the update here. Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, ousted board member of BlueSky, and grifter extraordinaire to the tune of a $5.6B net worth, is giving a keynote at FOSDEM. The FOSDEM keynote stage is one of the biggest platforms in the free software community. Janson is the biggest venue in the event - its huge auditorium can accommodate over 1,500 of FOSDEM's 8,000 odd attendees, and it is live streamed to a worldwide audience as the face of one of the free and open source software community's biggest events of the year. We've platformed Red Hat, the NLNet Foundation, NASA, numerous illustrious community leaders, and many smaller projects that embody our values and spirit at this location to talk about their work or important challenges our community faces. Some of these challenges, as a matter of fact, are Jack Dorsey's fault. In 2023 this stage hosted Hachyderm's Kris Nóva to discuss an exodus of Twitter refugees to the fediverse. After Dorsey sold Twitter to Elon Musk, selling the platform out to the far right for a crisp billion-with-a-"B" dollar payout, the FOSS community shouldered the burden - both with our labor and our wallets - of a massive exodus onto our volunteer-operated servers, especially from victims fleeing the hate speech and harassment left in the wake of the sale. Two years later one of the principal architects of, and beneficiaries of, that disaster will step onto the same stage. Even if our community hadn't been directly harmed by Dorsey's actions, I don't think that we owe this honor to someone who took a billion dollars to ruin their project, ostracize their users, and destroy the livelihoods of almost everyone who worked on it. Dorsey is presumably being platformed in Janson because his blockchain bullshit company is a main sponsor of FOSDEM this year. Dorsey and his colleagues want to get us up to speed on what Block is working on these days. Allow me to give you a preview: in addition to post