FOSDEM 24 Event Recap

After participating in FOSDEM 2024, preparations before the event, presentations at the booth over the two days of the event, and discoveries at the event venue, were all documented. These have been compiled and shared with everyone through text and photos for reference in future community booth activities or international exchanges.

FOSDEM

FOSDEM is an annual conference specifically designed for developers of open-source software (OSS) and free software. The event spans two days and takes place at the ULB Solbosch Campus, Brussels, Belgium. Because participation is free, it attracts developers from across Europe and even around the world to come together in Belgium to participate! Consequently, relevant open-source associations, foundations, and communities also take advantage of the timing of the conference to organize their own gatherings and meetings before or after the event (Fringe).

Schedule

In 2024, FOSDEM's track reached 67 tracks, with a total of 862 activities and 933 speakers. Due to the abundance of program items, various classrooms within the university are fully utilized to maintain such diverse content. (Although the organizers always feel like there are never enough classrooms!)

Stands / Booths

As the program classrooms are spread across various buildings on the campus, community booths are also allocated to different areas based on their attributes. This time, the Open Culture Foundation applied for a booth under the name 'Open Culture Foundation+ Taiwan open source community' located on the second floor of building K. In this area, alongside many foundations and open-source community groups, they share and promote their respective open-source ideologies and efforts.

Open Culture Foundation

The Open Culture Foundation applied for a booth at FOSDEM for the first time in 2023. Due to the positive feedback and suggestions received, this year we are following the approach of 2023 but openly recruiting more open-source communities from Taiwan to join us heading to FOSDEM!

Taking the Taiwan open-source community to FOSDEM

This time, we created an event page to recruit open-source communities to provide us with introductory texts and promotional materials. Finally, we packed some flyers provided by the communities (vTaiwan, COSCUP, PyConTW, SITCON, Cofacts, g0v Taiwan, g0v summit) and headed out! Although this method doesn't allow for personal attendance, it does let attendees over the two days of the event know about the activities of open-source communities in Taiwan.

Flyers

Before departing, the Open Culture Foundation pondered on how to quickly acquaint FOSDEM attendees with who we are, what we do, and which open-source communities exist in Taiwan.

This time, we produced four different sets of introductory materials covering the foundation introduction, foundation projects, community projects, and a categorized list of Taiwan's open-source communities along with seminars scheduled for 2024 in Taiwan.

In addition to distributing these introductions at our booth, we also posted them on bulletin boards in the buildings where the sessions were held, allowing attendees waiting in line to peruse our flyers while waiting to enter the classrooms.

Explanation of each flyer
dm_community_in_TW.pdf	List of Taiwan communities and schedule for conferences held in Taiwan in 2024.
dm_cores.pdf	Introduction to the Open Culture Foundation and our partners.
dm_projects.pdf	Introduction to foundation's projects.
dm_community.pdf	Introduction to collaborating communities.
dm_one.pdf	Flyers for posting on bulletin boards, guiding to booth locations.

Stands / Booths

At the booth, most attendees showed considerable interest in the conferences scheduled to be held in Taiwan in 2024. Many attendees were familiar with Taiwan and knew where it was located but had not yet visited. We introduced the opportunity by encouraging them to apply for a speaking slot at a conferences they found interesting. If selected, they could also enjoy a trip to Taiwan!

Some attendees were pleasantly surprised by the multitude of open-source communities in Taiwan and expressed admiration for the efforts of the Open Culture Foundation in Taiwan! However, the crowd at the booth was almost constant, and almost all the printed flyers were distributed (with barely enough time to keep a few as souvenirs)! We also extend our gratitude to our partners at COSCUP for their assistance in introducing the Open Culture Foundation and other open-source communities at the booth!

FOSDEM Event Venue

Some observations from the event venue can serve as guidelines for organizing large-scale events or community gatherings attached to large events in the future.

Board

The boards at FOSDEM are quite 'humble' in a serious way. They cover existing bulletin boards with materials like mahjong paper or kraft paper directly, creating a 'new layer' where you can freely post. This has likely become a distinctive feature of FOSDEM! It's because of this setup that we could post a wide variety of flyers.

Food Trucks

In an area within the ULB Solbosch Campus, many food trucks are parked, selling various European snacks such as fries and pancakes. These snacks are convenient to take away and eat, solving the dining issues for everyone at the venue. Among them, there's one stall distributing 'cookies'—oh no, I mean browser cookies!

BYOI, Bring Your Own Internet?

A participant brought a complete set of networking equipment and set it up directly at the venue. Curious? Actually, the FOSDEM venue's network is quite fast, and this year they even achieved the milestone of IPv6 Only!

Signboards

The signboards and directional systems can be seen on the map relative to other buildings. Two points confirm a direction, three points determine a location! If you look closely at the QR code on the signboards, I believe they must have also considered coordination with the event management team for venue layout scheduling!

Workshops

Initially, I thought these were activities organized by FOSDEM officials, but it wasn't until the closing that I realized they were actually workshops initiated by the community. These workshops targeted specifically at children, with parents also participating on-site!

Stickers

One of the highlights of exploring the booths at the venue is collecting stickers you haven't seen before. Some stickers are FOSDEM only! Next to our booth, there was also a stall with a wide variety of commemorative stickers they designed themselves, and the results were quite impressive!

Other Observations

Promotion of Open Source Projects

Continuing from the flyers distribution, I noticed bulletin boards positioned outside each session room. In the future, it could be beneficial to post promotional materials for relevant open-source projects corresponding to the session tracks. This would give attendees the opportunity to see content from the same field and potentially engage with it.

The Interaction between Session Tracks and Communities

Each session track at FOSDEM is organized and curated by volunteers from the respective communities or those interested in similar topics. As the event preparation begins, the conference establishes corresponding discussion channels through the Elements communication platform. Interestingly, most of the call for proposals information for session tracks is individually managed on GitHub pages, with links provided for unified announcements by FOSDEM.

This approach allows community track organizers to maintain a considerable level of visibility and enhances collaborative relationships in organizing the event alongside the conference.

Each session track is essentially a large-scale seminar event.

Upon actual participation, it was found that the attendance for each session track at FOSDEM reached almost 300 - 400 individuals! Even the day before the event, there were pre-event gatherings organized by various communities (simple socializing events) either inside the venue or elsewhere. Compared to FOSDEM's function as a gathering for participants from around the world, these communities seize the opportunity to hold physical discussion meetings.

Session Recordings

Remarkable efficiency! Within a week after the conference concluded, many sessions already had video recordings, presentation slides, and other supplementary materials uploaded to their respective session pages. The workflow behind this achievement is worth paying attention to! It is known that FOSDEM has a comprehensive recording and uploading process in place, along with available technical support and collaboration.

Special Thanks

Community Map Information

Special thanks to Chen Xingyan (陳幸延, Open Hack Farm) for providing the Taiwan community map information. We referenced the classification method of the community map when creating flyers, matching our current open-source communities and conferences in Taiwan!

COSCUP

Special thanks to our partners at COSCUP for not only providing information about the annual conference at the booth but also assisting the Open Culture Foundation in promoting our efforts in Taiwan regarding open-source communities and the promotion of open culture and open-source spirit!

Taiwanese Gathering Dinner

Some partners came from the UK, Munich, Belgium, or elsewhere in Asia, and we thank them for joining us for dinner on the evening of 2/2, exchanging thoughts on living in Europe!