[kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 5:21 PM, John Layt <jlayt at kde.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just a heads-up that I will not be attending FOSDEM next year and will
> not be assisting in any way with preparations for FOSDEM or providing
> any hardware. This is the result of the FOSDEM organisers refusing to
> institute a proper Code of Conduct for attendees or to take any other
> steps in addressing the dreadful gender ratio of speakers on their
> program or attending the conference itself. I have attempted to
> discuss these issues with them and found their attitude and beliefs
> completely unacceptable to me. As such I cannot give them any form of
> support, and sadly that means not helping the KDE community at this
> event anymore.
>
> John.

Ouch, I was not aware that FOSDEM has no CoC. That is really bad. Do
we have any connections to the organizers where we can make them aware
that this is *important*?

I for one would never want to attend a conf. with no CoC. There have
been far too many incidents of harassment, assault and other nastiness
to ignore. It is up to us individually and up to us as the KDE
community to stand up for minority communities, and extend the hand of
friendship to all.

I know FOSDEM is happening soon, but it is not too late to take some
action on our part, and not too late for them to add a link to a
decent CoC on their website, at the very least.

Thank you John for raising the issue on the list. I wish I had known earlier.

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez