offdem.net is the continuation of the Off-festival, initiated by petites singularités, of the Free and Open-Source Developer European Meeting to accompany FOSDEM during its 20th anniversary celebration. After four editions, the OFFDEM community decided to make it fly on its own, and this is where it happens.
OFFDEM is part of the free software movement. It aims to question the means and ends of free technology production, maintenance, ethics, and politics.
As they moved away from FOSDEM, they embraced different ways to organize a political gathering around free technology production. What they are doing here did not exist before, except to a point in some related hacker circles. Moreover, FOSDEM remains subjugated by the same corporate sponsors that they refuse to see in their community spaces.
They are organizing the upcoming events in their forum. You’re welcome to give a hand. Note that there is still some work to do moving our archives from our previous home to here and it may take some time, according to our availability and priorities — but the ongoing activity remains steady.
O₅F₂FDEM 0x05 topics
In the specific context of this edition, here are some issues they wish to address.
Transparency/Trust?
How funds are allocated, by whom, why? Among ourselves and towards the institutions regarding public fundings, where should we place the boundaries between transparency and trust? A constructive outcome for this issue could be to draft the contours of a common charter out of a discussion.
(Re)distribution
Engaging free software funding should think beyond developers only. Also, institutional means should match the local needs, not the reverse. An outcome for such an issue could be to collectively take stock of the past/current fundings and their (dis)connection with the majority of the world’s issues. Maybe in a publication?
Breaking the (Supply) Chains
Continuing the previous editions of OFFDEM, they wish to organize on their industrial preoccupations alongside with workers from the whole supply chain of FLOSS and Open Hardware, from the mines to the users and including semiconductor people and assembly workers in an internationalist, syndicalist perspective. Where are the limits of our respective networks and can we leverage a broader common momentum for reclaiming more means to share all along?
