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Copyleft Conference… sponsored by Google.
https://2019.copyleftconf.org/sponsors/
Kindly go die in a fire.
#SurveillanceCapitalism HT https://mastodon.social/@desikn/101381009594236926
The thing about Google and Facebook sponsoring all the major tech and privacy-related conferences is that how likely is a speaker to be accepted if they are critical of those companies, and how much self-censorship will occur out of fear of insulting the Platinum sponsor and not being invited back again.
ROFTL! ! ! 
Kuhn invited me to meet him and Fontana at #FOSDEM when I proposed the #HackingLicense to #Debian...
When I explained him that since a #Google engineer removed my name from #Harvey without removing my contribution, I'm going to carefully vet anything that comes from @conservancy, he didn't wrote me back.
Now they organize a #Copyleft conference with Google!
I really want to believe in good faith, but people... you are really challenging my suspension of disbelief!
The means are to goals what the seeds are to trees.
I'm not a #moralist, I don't give a shit about how they collect their money as long as they use them well.
But this is like making a conference on #inequality sponsored by #Bezos.
It has a clear message:
Please, don't fight this battle too hard because if you win, we won't be able to fund conferences about the topic anymore!
@Shamar @bob @aral @conservancy I'm no expert on the FOSS politics, but every FOSS conference I see is sponsored by big corps (even Microsoft).
I think too many SV techbros are "caught in the monkey trap" where they literally cannot see anything other than neoliberal capitalism, especially when GAFAM provides them with what they view as secure, stable employment
Maybe like workers elsewhere continuing to work in coal mine or making cars that cheat environment regulations to stay in work..
On the FOSS politics, apart from everything already known about Google I expect that this year might be the one where they formally launch Fuchsia and begin on the road towards deprecating the Linux kernel. Fuchsia will be technically Free Software but not copyleft and the design of its architecture will be controlled by Google, allowing them greater opportunities for data exfiltration and inserting ads in a manner which can't be blocked.
@aral @conservancy @bob @vfrmedia
> #Fuchsia will be technically
> #FreeSoftware but not
> #copyleft [...] controlled by
> #Google, [...] inserting #ads
Sorry, @freedombone, but given who control Google, unblockable Ads are the last of my concerns: https://medium.com/@giacomo_59737/the-web-is-still-a-darpa-weapon-31e3c3b032b8
Do they actually use any copyleft license for any of their own software? From what I can see, they're mostly using Apache and BSD.
@aral You are aware, however, that Google is member of the Open Innovation Network, as well as on the board of the GNOME foundation and in the list of donors of the FSFE? We have a funding problem for #SoftwareLibre or #EthicalSoftware ... 
] LB -- fucking yikes. Like just... no. That's so unfortunate. I would bow out / freak out if I were trying to speak there.
"A survey of tech conference sponsors: the ethics of influence"
@aral and all, I did some legal/law study on the status of Software Freedom Conservancy and found out that luckly it's a 501(c)(3) charity organization, highly regulated in the USA and that which must act for the public good. From the documents in their website and also on the conference one tells me that they are fine and upstanding in their charge to act in the public good. Nothing here convinces me otherwise. See https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2018/oct/10/microsoft-oin-exfat/ , https://sfconservancy.org/about/filings/ , https://2019.copyleftconf.org/sponsors/become-a-sponsor .
@adfeno All the worse if they are fine and upstanding: the problem here is that they are legitimising surveillance capitalists. The more fine and upstanding they are the worse (better) the legitimisation.