FOSDEM Fringe Announcement

[how]

Working on the Fringe announcement…

https://submission.fosdem.org/submission/fringe

Name of the Event

OFFDEM

Location of the Event

Rue Fritz Toussaint 8, Brussels.

If you come from FOSDEM.

Train : Etterbeek Station | Tram : Etterbeek or Roffiaen.

Description of the Event

@p.s

An intersectional festival about collective practices & free technologies production.

Conceived as the Off festival of FOSDEM, OFFDEM aims to attract producers and users of free technologies (free software, open source hardware) at the margin of FOSDEM, which is the world’s largest gathering of free software and open-source developers. OFFDEM is set to happen, like FOSDEM, on the first week-end of February, in Brussels, at a location close to the traditional FOSDEM venue.

@how

FOSDEM is approaching its 20 year anniversary.

It is customary to many large festivals to have an Off version at the margin of the main festival, to give space to proposals that are not represented in the official one.

The idea of OFFDEM is to address intersectional questions that are not present at FOSDEM, in a format that attracts people who usually do not go there: at OFFDEM, everyone is a user.

FOSDEM misses cosy and quiet spaces for collectives to meet, focus, hack and work together in good conditions, away from the noise and seasonal rain, shielded from the usual stress of too much sollicitation and perceptual saturation ; the main attraction of OFFDEM should be its absence of both concurrent tracks and a main track, so that ad-hoc organization, free conversation and unexpected activities can take place.

OFFDEM should also act as an overflow mechanism for a number of free software groups that could not obtain a devroom due to the saturation of physical space at FOSDEM.

The idea came from the conjunction of two processes:

1. the feeling that another type of free software gathering is needed, more radical, and more focused on intersectional topics, gathering concerned citizens and everyone who falls under the unique vocable of user , unfolding the diversity and exploring the complementarity of the people usually left aside of the programming elites of “open-source”;
2. a growing discontent with the evolution of FOSDEM: cultivating social grouping, accepting questionable sponsors that fail to address our concerns against surveillance capitalism.

This situation made us will to create an alternative event to FOSDEM that would break down the barriers between communities, provide an inclusive space for people from different disciplines to be considered not only as end-users but as accomplices in the production of new techniques that support social change and the Commons.

Why should it be listed as part of FOSDEM Fringe?

Contact Info

hellekin @how offdem.team@zoethical.com

URL: https://ps.zoethical.org/c/cooperation/offdem

Starts: 2020-02-01
Ends: 2020-02-02

Fee: zero

Registration ?

Groups should register their expression of interest to ensure they have a work space. Individuals may show up freely.

Any further info

Please use the forum to coordinate in advance!
https://ps.zoethical.org/c/cooperation/offdem

[how]

Thank you for your submission!

You should receive a confirmation email soon. … Your proposal will be reviewed and if we accept it, it will be published on our website.

[how]

I modified the opening text to comply with FOSDEM organization’s demand to address a, er, factual dissensus, that we can address later altogether.