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Have you submitted a talk to the Open Source Design devroom at @fosdem yet? 
CfP closing in 10 days!
https://opensourcedesign.net/2023/11/14/fosdem-cfp-2024
@aral @opensourcedesign @simulo @fosdem Ok, SOMEONE has to pay for the whole thing. Why not take Google's money? We should be slurping up all the revenue possible from the greedy capitalists, to empower as much OSS goodness as possible. Everyone needs to eat and pay rent; and events are expensive to produce.
@aral Did I disagree with any of your article's points? How do you pay your bills—where does your income come from? Have you tried support a family on OSS grant funds? Secured funding to enable others to work on OSS? I spent three years doing it. The funding is not there from ethical sources, to sustain OSS. So you can hold to ideals, or you can take the money so better software gets made—which can deliver results to put the Googles & the Metas out of business. @opensourcedesign @simulo @fosdem
@ninavizz @opensourcedesign @simulo @fosdem So here’s the thing, I couldn’t take money from surveillance capitalists even if I wanted to because they rather dislike being called surveillance capitalists. So the only way I could take money from Google is if I said “Hey, guys, I was wrong, Google aren’t a threat to human rights or democracy.” (And actually, that would be worth *a lot* of money if I did that. But then I wouldn’t be me.)
@ninavizz @opensourcedesign @simulo @fosdem To answer your question: we did a round of crowdfunding ten years ago (mistake; not the way to fund ongoing work), then I sold two apartments my family had in Turkey. That kept us going for a while. Then I made a tracker blocker and sold licenses to that on Apple’s platforms. Then we ran out of money so Laura started contacting so I could continue building the Small Web. And that’s where we are.
@ninavizz @opensourcedesign @simulo @fosdem So yes, it’s hard. Damn hard. Pick between your principles and afford having a family hard. But I can’t do anything else. I’d rather starve than legitimise a bloody people farmer like Google or Meta. And we haven’t gotten a single bloody cent from the EU or grants (not for lack of trying). Going forward, my goal is to hopefully make us sustainable by being one of (hopefully many) Small Web hosts.
@ninavizz @opensourcedesign @simulo @fosdem But I wrote all that when Audre Lorde said it so much better and with far fewer words:
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
@aral Germany seems to be good with funding public tech; but, I'm also American. So for me its healthcare, housing, and food, and the same for my retired/elderly parents. And my disabled partner. Honestly, I took thousands in funding from the USG to do work on projects that openly oppose their policies. Really, you'd be surprised what funders either don't notice, or don't care about. TY for all you've done, it sounds like A LOT!! @simulo @fosdem
@ninavizz @simulo @fosdem Ditto :)
And here’s hoping we can change things for the better so folks in the future have more options and we can fund technology for the common good from the common purse.
I tried to get the folks at the EU Parliament to understand that a few years ago but I’m not sure it had any effect whatsoever.
https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/
@aral OMG lookit you—WOW, you got IN FRONT OF the dang Parliament! Congrats!! Honestly, tech used to be all about the common good. More of it, than not. My dad was a tech exec in the 1980s, and it was a very different world, then. He was so excited when I left for-profit, and then was almost more bummed-out than I was, when I had to return to it. All of us fighting to make it better, tho, make his generation proud. VERY proud, fwiw. Please know that! <3 @simulo @fosdem
@aral (btw, I totally love your non-accent, on an aside. More blurring of borders and national identity markers, please!)