FOSDEM’20

Thousands of open source developers from all over Europe are flocking to Brussels on 1 and 2 February to share ideas and collaborate.

FOSDEM is one of the top developer events on the planet, gathering 8,000+ open source community members. Although NGI-funded projects have only been operational for just one year, several NGI-funded projects have been selected to talk at this FOSDEM 2020 edition.

NGI is driving activities at the community-organized event and the objectives of FOSDEM are closely aligned with the NGI Initiative. Open source communities address most parts of the Internet stack with a philosophy that is fully aligned with the values supported by the Next Generation Internet: openness, respect of privacy, transparency, inclusion, cooperation and decentralisation.

For more info on NGI involvement at FOSDEM, read our news article:
NGI SUPPORTS OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY’S FOSDEM 2020

FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate.

Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.

What is FOSDEM?

FOSDEM is a free and non-commercial event organised by the community for the community. The goal is to provide free and open source software developers and communities a place to meet to:

• get in touch with other developers and projects;
• be informed about the latest developments in the free software world;
• be informed about the latest developments in the open source world;
• attend interesting talks and presentations on various topics by project leaders and committers;
• to promote the development and benefits of free software and open source solutions.

Participation and attendance is totally free, though the organisers gratefully accept donations and sponsorship.

Developer rooms

The FOSDEM team feels it is very important for free and open source software developers around the world to be able to meet in “real life”.
To this end, we have set up developer rooms (devrooms) with network/internet connectivity and projectors where teams can meet and showcase their projects. Devrooms are a place for teams to discuss, hack and publicly present latest directions, lightning talks, news and discussions. We believe developers can benefit a lot from these meetings.

A bit of history

In 2000, Raphael Bauduin, a fan of the Linux movement in Belgium, decided to organise a small meeting for developers of Open Source software. He called it ‘Open Source Developers’ European Meeting’ (OSDEM).
Raphael created a mailing list, a small website and spread the word to people around him. Only a few weeks later, lots of people were waiting for an exciting event in Brussels! Invitations were sent to well-known figures in the community: Rasterman, Fyodor, Jeremy Allison and so on. They all gave a very positive response, and OSDEM was on the road to success.
For the second year, OSDEM was renamed FOSDEM. And now, many years later, it has grown into the event it is today. We now try to cover a wide spectrum of free and open source software projects, and offer a platform for people to collaborate. Every year, we host more than 5000 developers at the ULB Solbosch campus.
Raphael is no longer the driving force behind FOSDEM. After 7 years of hard work he left the team for new Open Source plans.