The FOSDEM Pledge

↤ October 22^th, 2026

The FOSDEM organising team has rejected a proposal for a DEI room at FOSDEM 2027. This is that last in a long line of opportunities not taken by the organisers. The predominantly cis, white and male audience at FOSDEM is a direct result of this neglect.

And yet FOSDEM is a vital focal point for the FOSS community every year and attendance helps fostering a community we desperately need. Ensuring diversity in the attendees and speakers is essential for the long-term success of our movement.

As a fellow cis-white-man, I am proposing the FOSDEM Pledge:

• If you are a speaker, take a minute or two of your talk to cover a DEI topic.
• If you are a room organiser, dedicate a talk per day to a DEI topic and encourage your speakers to take the DEI pledge.
• If you are an attendee, encourage room organisers and speakers to take the pledge.
• If you are already knowledgable about DEI, please help put together resources for speakers to incorporate into their presentations and help coordinate so we don’t end up with too many duplicates.

Let’s diversify FOSDEM!

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FaQ

This won’t do anything.

That’s not a question and yeah maybe, but I also don’t want to do nothing and passively support the status quo.

There is so much more we need to do in DEI, for example X, Y and Z.

I agree, I’m doing this, you can pick one of the others.

I’m a not-cis-male-white person and I don’t feel comfortable attending an event with such a demography.

I understand and I am not asking you to attend or in any way absolve FOSDEM of their responsibility by doing this. My hope is that future FOSDEMs might be something you’d be willing to attend.

I’m a white cis man, why am I made to feel like a problem?

If we are the majority of attendees, it is on us to say “who is not here, and why”, if the organisers won’t do that work. This is our chance to be part of the solution.

FOSDEM has so many other problems that compound my discomfort with it.

I understand and possibly agree, I’m tackling this first. Maybe showing outside organising on a topic encourages others, or the organisers, to address the other issues.

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