Just received the call for participation for FOSDEM 2009 from one of the organizers. FOSDEM is THE event to visit.
If you're a developer, you'll have the chance to attend some awesome presentations from the people that create major open source programs, such as GNOME, KDE, Firefox, plus meet these people, discuss and exchange opinions!
If you're not a developer, but interested in open source software, trust me after two days in FOSDEM you'll make it your first priority to become a developer, or focus on another activity around open source software (like translations, graphics, system administration, propaganda, obviously coding isn't the only necessary in the open source software ecosystem)!
Finally if you're not interested in open source, and just want to get an idea what it is about, you'll be amazed to see a few thousands of people discussing passionately about it, and you will have the chance to see this software in action, as there is plenty of equipment and the teams behind the software willing to solve all your questions. And what a better way to get introduced to Firefox, or Fedora Linux, or OpenOffice, by talking to these project's communities, that will be there, with plenty of computers for demonstration reasons!
Entrance to
FOSDEM is free of charge and help is provided to newcomers from the big
organizing team, which is populated by volunteers.
I'd dare to
say FOSDEM is one of the ultimate computer related events, not only for
people interested in open source, but also practically everyone that
works with computers or studies computer science. CS university classes should sponsor their students to attend this two days event,
happening every year at Brussels. Also, IT companies could do this,
sponsor people to travel in Brussels for two days to attend the event.
If you are involved on an open source project, maybe you should consider into presenting it at FOSDEM! Lightning talks (15 minute talks) is the correct place for this. Not only your project will get some publicity, you might also attract developers
to join the project, which is something more or less all open source
projects are in continuous need of! And what a better place to
brainstorm about your project, than a place were a few thousands of
developers are hanging around for two days!
If you've heard of
FOSDEM and willing to pay a visit, just do it, this will be worth it
100%. It might be a little early to organize a trip at the moment
(FOSDEM is taking place in Brussels, 7 and 8 February), but if you're
willing to arrange a talk for your project, there are some deadlines,
so better register now.
At http://archive.fosdem.org/2008/ you can find the archives of FOSDEM 2008. Slides, presentations, videos, photos and all material from last year's FOSDEM!
(the call for participation as can be found at http://fosdem.org)
FOSDEM is probably the most developer-oriented Free and Opensource
conference, taking place in Brussels, Belgium on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8
February 2009. Apart from having many invited speakers, the conference
offers developer rooms, stands and lightning talks to projects from the
Free and Opensource community.
We hereby welcome proposals from projects to participate in organizing a
devroom, manning a stand or holding a lightning talk.
As every year, we have only a limited number of rooms, space for stands
and lightning talk slots. Since we always receive more requests than we
can host, a committee within the FOSDEM organizing team will review all
proposals. Selection will be based on possible impact, our experience of
previous editions and diversity in the offerings.
*** Devrooms
We offer large projects a devroom during the conference. A devroom is a
room in which projects can organize their own schedule made of
presentations, brainstorming and hacking sessions. Our goal is to
stimulate developer collaboration and cross-pollination between
projects, and as such we strongly favor projects with similar goals and
domains to host a devroom together.
See http://fosdem.org/2009/call_for_devrooms_and_stands
*** Stands
We offer stands to projects that want to present themselves to the
visitors in a more personal fashion. Stands can be used to share
information, demo software, sell merchandizing or give away goodies.
See http://fosdem.org/2009/call_for_devrooms_and_stands
*** Lightning talks
We offer lightning talks to all other projects that want to present
themselves. A lightning talk is a short talk in which a project can
introduce itself, talk about recent developments, or share exciting new
directions.
See http://fosdem.org/2009/call_for_lightningtalks
FOSDEM 2009 will be the 9th edition of the event, which has been
steadily growing every year in importance and in the number of visitors.
Our goal is to provide a platform to Free and Opensource projects to
meet, discuss, present their current and future developments, both to
their own developer and user community as to other projects that are
present. Given the large amount of active contributors from many
different projects present during the conference, it is an exceptionally
well suited occasion to share goals and ideas with people from other
communities, which is something we strongly encourage and do our best to
support. Of course, the event only lives through the projects that take
part in it, and through the many FOSS contributors who attend. We merely
do our best to provide the best possible service to the FOSS community
at large.
*** Key dates:
* 2008-11-22: Deadline for devroom & stand requests
* 2008-11-30: Devroom & stand acceptance notification
* 2008-12-26: Deadline for lightning talk requests
* 2008-12-29: Lightning talk acceptance notification
* 2009-01-09: Deadline for final devroom & lightning talk schedules
* 2009-02-07 to 2009-02-08: FOSDEM 2009
For more information, visit http://fosdem.org/