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”.

So Drew DeVault plans to organize a peaceful protest as explained in his post:

To that end, I am organizing a sit-in, in which I and anyone who will join me are going to sit ourselves down on the Janson stage during his allocated time slot and peacefully prevent the talk from proceeding as scheduled. We will be meeting at 11:45 AM outside of Janson, 15 minutes prior to Dorsey’s scheduled time slot. Once the stage is free from the previous speaker, we will sit on the stage until 12:30 PM.

So I suppose a peaceful protest would imply that Jack Dorsey would still be able to walk to the podium surrounded by protestors and give his talk. Whether you want to join or avoid the protest, the talk is scheduled on Sunday between 12:00 and 12:30.

Needless to say, FOSDEM organizers want protesters to be able to exercise their rights while keeping everything peaceful:

At FOSDEM, we have always allowed and welcomed protest, even when that protest was directed at the organization or one of our sponsors. Open Source and Free Software are inherently political, and as such it is normal and expected that our attendees are more vocal about the wider world, and about FOSDEM in particular. As such, if a peaceful protest were to take place during the talk in question, we will not take action, provided the protest is indeed peaceful and does not disrupt the proceedings.

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