FluConf is an (online) event for people that are interested in or involved with Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) and open culture. There are a variety of other events related to these topics, so this page will focus on FluConf's differences.
An evidence-based public health policy
COVID-19 continues to kill and permanently disable large segments of the population. Additionally, there are a number of other infectious diseases currently being tracked by various health agencies as potential causes for public concern.
These illnesses are largely preventable, but most public institutions are at this point very hesitant to enforce mask mandates or other measures which are known to be effective in limiting their spread. For as long as this continues to be the case, we believe that communities must be responsible for protecting the health of their own members, and that this must be done through solidarity rather than encouraging individual responsibility.
To that end, we have signed the Public Health Pledge, and encourage others to do so as well.
Online
So long as densely-populated in-person events remain an unacceptable risk, we are committed to developing alternatives as a form of harm reduction. FluConf takes place online, and will perhaps be more similar to a reading group or trade journal for those interested in FOSS.
Beyond reducing the spread of dangerous pathogens which are unfortunately commonplace at many traditional conferences, we also aim to foster the inclusion of groups who have been unable to attend such events for a wide variety of reasons. For those who avoid international travel for the sake of the climate, or those for whom the acquisition of a visa is time-consuming and prohibitively expensive, or for a wide range of other circumstances, purely online events where such participants are more than an afterthought can be a way to access opportunities which are often reserved for those with more privilege.
Like unconferences and other somewhat subversive types of event, we aim to develop an organizational format which is cost-effective and easily replicated without highly specialized infrastructure or corporate sponsorship.
Unavoidably political
We acknowledge that computation is political in nature. Sophisticated hardware is only possible because of a complex network of highly specialized mining, manufacturing, and transportation industries. All software encodes the biases of its authors, and its production and distribution is a fundamentally social undertaking which often reinforces existing power structures.
We aim to promote intersectionality in our curation process. We consider it inappropriate to simultaneously promote incompatible ideologies just because they are released under compatible software licences. In practice, this means we won't colocate work related to a green energy transition with the promotion of LLMs and blockchain, or promoting diversity in software while welcoming those who contract with militaries and law enforcement.
Capacity-building
Many FOSS projects are founded with a goal of being liberatory in some fashion, but are often limited by a focus on their technical aspects. We aim to support capacity-building by recognizing the role of non-computational disciplines and highlighting perspectives that are often omitted from FOSS discourse.
We believe there are many people who share our values, and we hope to help arrange for more opportunities for them to meet.