FOSDEM '25 protest

Update: Dorsey’s talk was cancelled! See the update here.

Last week, I wrote to object to Jack Dorsey and his company, Block, Inc., being accepted as main track speakers at FOSDEM, and proposed a protest action in response. FOSDEM issued a statement about our plans on Thursday.

Today, I have some updates for you regarding the planned action.

I would like to emphasize that we are not protesting FOSDEM or its organizers. We are protesting Jack Dorsey and his company, first and foremost, from promoting their business at FOSDEM. We are members of the FOSDEM community. We have variously been speakers, devroom organizers, volunteers, and attendees for years — in...

Совмещаем Ассемблер и Си в одном проекте

Здравствуйте, на связи nikhotmsk с очередным потоком сугубо-технических мыслей. В своей прошлой статье я обещал не использовать жаргонный язык и улучшить читаемость статей. Так вот, сообщаю, что из этого ничего не получилось. Поэтому если вы ничего не поймете, то это значит, что у вас не хватило знаний, как говорил персонаж из книги - "Чтобы что-то узнать, надо уже что-то знать". Но расстраиваться не нужно.

Глядя на главную картинку вы уже почувствовали неладное. Да, я программирую для старинного компьютера ZX Spectrum. Того самого, который построен на чипе Zilog Z80, и у которого графическая память, пожалуй, самая запутанная среди всех ретро-машин. Но наша...

No billionaires at FOSDEM

Update: Dorsey’s talk was cancelled! See the update here.

Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, ousted board member of BlueSky, and grifter extraordinaire to the tune of a $5.6B net worth, is giving a keynote at FOSDEM.

The FOSDEM keynote stage is one of the biggest platforms in the free software community. Janson is the biggest venue in the event – its huge auditorium can accommodate over 1,500 of FOSDEM’s 8,000 odd attendees, and it is live streamed to a worldwide audience as the face of one of the free and open source software community’s biggest events of the year. We’ve platformed Red Hat, the NLNet Foundation, NASA, numerous...

Year-end donations round, 2024 edition

Just in time before the year ends, I’ve gone ahead with my round of personal donations for 2024. I highly encourage you to do something similar and support the free and open source software and organizations that make a difference to you.

This year, my personal list consisted of:

Signal as every year, because I use it daily.

Calibre eBook Management, which my wife uses a lot.

The Gnome Project, which is my desktop environment these days.

LibreOffice because I use it very frequently and I think it’s a critical piece of software for the desktop.

Pi-Hole because I have one set up in my home network...

Casting video files from Linux to AppleTV

A couple of weeks ago I received an AppleTV 4K as an early Christmas present. It’s a really nice device and it immediately replaced my Chromecast Ultra as the way to watch streaming content on my 15-year-old non-smart TV. Of course, the kids love it too!

Before I disconnected my Chromecast Ultra from the TV to put it back into its box, there was a small matter I needed to solve. Sometimes I watch content on my TV by casting it from my Linux PC. Most of that content are rips of my DVD collection, which is thankfully legal in Spain, as far as I...

Concurrent programming with monitors

2024-11-26

svkbd 0.4.2 released: download

My XDC 2024 talk about VK_EXT_device_generated_commands

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=ngyBOTi6oHg

Some days ago I wrote about the new VK_EXT_device_generated_commands Vulkan extension that had just been made public. Soon after that, I presented a talk at XDC 2024 with a brief introduction to it. It’s a lightning talk that lasts just about 7 minutes and you can find the embedded video below, as well as the slides and the talk transcription if you prefer written formats.

Truth be told, the topic deserves a longer presentation, for sure. However, when I submitted my talk proposal for XDC I wasn’t sure if the extension was going to be public by the time XDC would take place. This meant...

Bespoke solution to monitor power outages at home

When I came home from a 5-days family trip this summer I immediately realized power was off in our flat. The main switch in the electricity panel was down together with one other additional switch. Everything appeared to have happened a few days before we arrived, so a few things in the fridge were ruined and most of the freezer contents had to be discarded. This was despite the fact we have relatives living close by with an emergency set of keys but, as we were completely unaware of the events, we couldn’t ask them to go check.

I thought about what happened and...

Neurodivergence and accountability in free software

In November of last year, I wrote Richard Stallman’s political discourse on sex, which argues that Richard Stallman, the founder of and present-day voting member of the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), endorses and advocates for a harmful political agenda which legitimizes adult attraction to minors, consistently defends adults accused of and convicted of sexual crimes with respect to minors, and more generally erodes norms of consent and manipulates language regarding sexual harassment and sexual assault in his broader political program.

In response to this article, and on many occasions when I have re-iterated my position on Stallman in other contexts, a common response is...