John Sullivan @johns@librem.one

Also will definitely be sticking around to see shortly after my talk, more about app stores and the EU: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/eu_app_stores/

Speaking tomorrow in the Legal and Policy Issues room, about free software's reckoning with app stores: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/app_store_changes/

Twitter is the new Freenode

@mairin Yeah I hope so too. We're seeing high profile journalists and press outlets posting officially from Mastodon now, good start.

@mairin Yesterday's news made me think of this again, just a reminder to me that while it's fun and interesting to talk about the ethical / constitutional principles involved, it's not really what any of this is about -- the people touting free speech are trying to control others' speech too (and more, I think, and for selfish-er purposes), they are just less honest about it: https://www.engadget.com/twitter-suspends-journalists-who-cover-elon-musk-015038157.html?src=rss

@spot https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/passenger-ordered-pay-reclining-seat-warning-b2239728.html

How better to attract the tech job candidates you want than to advertise in your HTML source? Love it.

@spot I feel like there could be a working system inspired by the turn two keys to start WW3 model.

@mairin and also I think there may be a need for enforced separation between the entity running the platform and the entity(ies) doing moderation.

@mairin Yeah I mean strictly looking at the private citizen to private citizen stuff on Twitter, it's not a free speech issue to me -- you're writing on someone else's computer -- like the newspaper, you can go start your own site. *But* because there are high profile public official presences on Twitter, I think there may be free speech issues there. It really is similar to your shopping mall example, and the cases about protests at the military recruiting offices that are inside malls.

@mairin I agree, but I think it got complicated when Twitter became a primary way citizens receive information from and convey free speech political opinions to their government representatives, without the government first securing the kinds of public interest rules that have long existed (imperfectly, but existed) for other forms of private media carrying public messages. So now we have a weird hybrid public/private thing that is very bad.

After 18 years with the Free Software Foundation, I've decided to resign my position as executive director, effective at the end of a transition period. We'll be sharing further details, including information about that transition, and a few more words, in the coming days. It's been a humbling honor to serve this institution, and to work alongside the FSF's staff, members, and volunteers over the years. The current staff deserve your full confidence and support -- they certainly have mine.

Yep, we need free software for vacuums too: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/26/971681198/users-report-drunken-roombas-after-software-update "go home roomba" "where's that?"

As if I didn't miss FOSDEM enough, when I opened OsmAnd today, it started me at my hotel from Brussels in 2020.