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FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

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Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#121

Post by DiggyJohnson »

yunnpp wrote: post #72
positron26 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did I lump both together when I specifically called them out separately, lol. Dude, "American OSS and American corporations" is simple conjunction, a union, treating two things as one so that you can make a single predicate statement about them. If you mean to make separate statements about the two things, maybe don't group them into the same sentence phrase? I asked you not to group these things together. If t…

At this point you're clearly misconstruing my statements, and/or have some problems with reading comprehension. Your others comments don't leave much to be positive about, either.

For what it’s worth I’m a neutral and I was confused by the way you worded / structured the original reply

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#122

Post by ongy »

throw567643u8 wrote: post #63
dwedge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone I spoke to this year had issues with the trains into Belgium. Cancellations, delays, strikes.

Was the Eurostar delayed, does anyone know?

Eurostar was fine for me. Getting to the Eurostar within Germany apparently sucked for some. But I took a later train and didn't have issues there either.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#123

Post by microtonal »

teekert wrote: post #51
haunter wrote: post #13

> Not every open source project exists to solve geopolitical problems, and not every contributor arrives with a policy agenda. FOSDEM has always thrived on its diversity of motivations, and maintaining that balance will be increasingly challenging. It’s not just the FOSS scene but there is an increasing crowd (mostly on the internet) of “everything is political”. Honestly I’m not sure what will happen in the coming y…

I for one am getting pretty sick of it. FOSS is by nature apolitical, pre-competitive and for me has always been an intellectual exercise. This is the only way it can power Chinese clouds, Azure, AWS and GCP, and the many EU sovereign systems we're going to see. To me it's a place to find kind people who are enthusiastic about tech, like me. Now I find myself judged when using Nix, genAI, Blockchain, Omarchy (and by…

I think that’s a very idealistic view of FOSS that is detached from reality. In the late 90s and early 00s we were fighting the crypto wars, making DeCSS illegal, DMCA, EUCD. There was a lot of infighting between free software and open source proponents. Many FSF campaigns were very political. I got bashed by some other FOSS people I knew in ~2006 for using and contributing to CentOS because it was Red Hat-based (evil empire or whatever).

The difference is that social media is amplifying things a lot more and there is a culture of destroying people in public (made easier by social media amplification).

It’s really the same issue as outside FOSS, social media creates stronger bubbles, more extremes, more grifters, and more amplification of crap.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#124

Post by ongy »

greatgib wrote: post #112
greatgib wrote: post #96

What saddens me a lot is that a lot of talks become low level beginner introduction fast food talks. I think that it was better when most talks were 45 mins to 1h with deeper more advanced and senior content. At the same time, with the overcrowded aspect, it becomes harder to socialize and meet people really involved in maintaining open source projects in my opinion. There are a lot lot lot more "users" on both sides…

As an example, in a majority of talks there was no time for questions and very little chatter between and around talks. It is like walking in big city, everyone is busy running around. And questions and comments after talks was what was bringing the most value to the event. Compared to just watch a recording of a talk.

Agreed, this year was a bit light on questions.

OTOH, 80% of the reason I go to talks is to see if the person has interesting things to say and grab them after the talk for a chat. I.e. it sucks for the remote experience, but I think for on-site it's fine to just talk more.

Gets harder if you consider the talks the main attraction, but I really see them more as hooks to talk to people about interesting topics.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#125

Post by markvdb »

positron26 wrote: post #41

As a US citizen, when I see the phrase "European digital sovereignty," I'm a bit concerned that our OSS enthusiast and activist allies in that geography are learning to associate American OSS with American tech companies and US government. This could deepen the old free/libre vs open source divide that seems to have polarized along the separation by the Atlantic ocean. If so, in a time where Americans may be soon hea…

OSS and FOSS are global, not American or EU or anything. The geopolitical situation is on another plane. FOSS can and will be used as a tool for strategic autonomy, for better and for worse.

Why would one at this very moment look with suspicion at a FOSS contributor for the sole reason (s)he's American?

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#126

Post by kragniz »

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #16

> The quality of the talks was high Maybe I was in the wrong rooms, but the quality of the talks were really low.. Most of them were advertising one kind of service or another.

Please leave feedback on talks (good and bad), it is useful for helping shape the program for next year

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#127

Post by throwawaypath »

GreenDolphinSys wrote: post #52
haunter wrote: post #13

> Not every open source project exists to solve geopolitical problems, and not every contributor arrives with a policy agenda. FOSDEM has always thrived on its diversity of motivations, and maintaining that balance will be increasingly challenging. It’s not just the FOSS scene but there is an increasing crowd (mostly on the internet) of “everything is political”. Honestly I’m not sure what will happen in the coming y…

The entire idea of F/OSS itself is political, and was very radical. We're just accustomed to it now, so it's not "political", in other words, it's not "controversial". Perhaps F/OSS is -more- political than other spaces because we organize around projects? Here, and on Reddit, we see the fallout of drama all the time in various F/OSS communities over disagreeing over policies. That's... politics. Unless you happen to…

>The entire idea of F/OSS itself is political, and was very radical.

Political and radical as it pertains to software, not whatever the grievance of the day to virtue signal over is.

FOSS projects are tired of the incessant US-centric, champagne socialist politicking destroying their communities. Thankfully peak nonsense is behind us. You no longer have power.

>But for some people, they can't really detach when their literal existence is deemed "political".

Everyone's existence is "political." It's a privileged position to think your existence is "political" while others are not.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#128

Post by ongy »

ignoramous wrote: post #89
fvdessen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSS original point wasn't just to have fun among nerds, but to have a real impact on the world. Fun and curiosity is fine, but there's a line where it becomes a tech themed larp event, and FOSDEM is trending towards the later. Corporate Open Source should have its place at FOSDEM. The linux dinosaur companies such as Redhat are still there. But what about the new ones ? What about Mistral, Odoo ? Even the 'evil' ones…

Looking at the talk lineup of a LLM related devroom, it sounds forward looking to me: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/track/ai/ > but to have a real impact on the world. I did find devrooms, stands, and main track talks on this. > Even the 'evil' ones such as facebook, github, etc, aren't they contributing a lot of open software Google is one of the two lead financial sponsors of FOSDEM (the other being RedHat). So…

Iirc. Jack was accepted by the organizers but pressured out by the community.

Also, about github: Had a chat with the Gitlab chap doing the Git talk in the main track. Apparently they dialed back their involvement with upstream git quite a bit. Github is currently providing a lot of infra gratis (thanks!) but is at best neutral to code and community.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#129

Post by gunalx »

greatgib wrote: post #93
NeutralForest wrote: post #30

It was fun but indeed, I spent a lot of time waiting in line for talks and in some rooms I couldn't even enter at all.

On my side, I had the feeling that there was less room/talk full to the point you can't enter compared to previous years. Except in the H building.

Agree, felt a little less packed than before. H building was brutal though.

Re: FOSDEM 2026 – Open-Source Conference in Brussels – Day#1 Recap

#130

Post by direwolf20 »

dwedge wrote: post #45
rurban wrote: post #3

With the car? I go by train, and then either by bike or tram. Much easier

Almost everyone I spoke to this year had issues with the trains into Belgium. Cancellations, delays, strikes.

Trains coming from the east via Berlin->Cologne were significantly disrupted.
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