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You may have heard of FOSDEM. It is the
biggest, all-over-the-place Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
developer conference in Europe, and possibly the world.
Set in the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels over two days
(three if you count some of the peripheral events), it now offers
hundreds of talks in 2 main tracks and 70 devrooms covering specific
topics from Declarative and Minimalistic Computing to Legal and
Policy challenges and Energy Transition as well, of course, as HPC,
Big Data & Data Science or Open Research, for tracks closely related
to StackHPC and its customers.
On top of this, there are tens of projects and companies present
with booths or extra “fringe” workshops or social events that happen
on the day before, after, at the same time or in the evenings.
This year was the 25th anniversary of the conference and it was
bigger than ever.
Why present
If you're thinking of attending, i can only recommend that you also
consider presenting!
Community events rely on interesting talks and workshops to give
people the impetus to travel (or the material to convince their
boss they should). Once there, it's about more than that, but
presenting ideas and experiences is core to the fundamental event.
And please, no marketing pitches!
Even if you don't think what you've done is interesting enough to
be presented alongside major projects and figures of the FOSS
community, don't underestimate that others won't necessarily know
your area: the world of open source is vast and broad. There is a
reaon there are so many specialised devrooms.
And if that still feels like too much, lightning talks might be the
right first experience: 15 minutes, questions included.
We still desperately need more diversity in the Open Source community,
so if you are (understandably) hesitant, consider finding a mentor or
supporting community to help guide you through answering the call for
proposals.
What to expect
Cold. Brussels in early February is not known for its balmy weather.
But it is vibrant, beautiful and has many great places for food and
drinks.
People. Lots of them. FOSDEM is bigger than ever: more buildings
being used, more people, more university cafés and food places open.
But at the same time, the volunteer team running the event does a
great job of making it not too hard to find your way to that next
talk.
Not to see everything you want to. Rooms reach max capacity (before
you reach them). Speakers get sick before they get there. Tech
problems. It's ok, maybe that talk in the room next door will turn
out to be great.
Serendipity. Or a bit of chaos. Trying to get through a hall full
of booths and excited FOSS enthusiasts. No more veggie burgers.
Bumping into people and never reaching building UA for the next
talk on your schedule. It's all part of being there, and what happens
there is the most important part. You can always catch up on the
talks back at home, they are recorded.
Some suggested talks or devrooms to catch up on
Talking of which, here is a small selection of devrooms and talks you
might find interesting.
And while it was not recorded, it's also worth mentioning that the
OpenInra Foundation organised a OpenStack Community Meetup BOF
(Birds of a Feather) meetup, which was quite packed!
A few parting thoughts
It is really good to see themes like Energy and Climate being part of
the event. Even though FOSDEM is a software development conference
first and foremost, it is one full of people trying to improve things
and exists in a world where climate is in crisis: seeing steps to take
it into account is a good thing.
Lastly, when attending large events like this, it’s worth wearing a
mask to protect yourself and others.
All this being said, i hope you will consider attending and presenting
at FOSDEM and community Free and Open Source events in general. We'll
see you at the next one!