Call for participation
We now invite proposals for main track presentations, developer rooms, stands and lightning talks.
FOSDEM offers open source and free software developers a place to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Renowned for being highly developer-oriented, the event brings together some 8000+ geeks from all over the world.
The eighteenth edition will take place on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th February 2018 at the usual location: ULB Campus Solbosch in Brussels.
We will record and stream all main tracks, devrooms and lightning talks live. The recordings will be published under the same licence as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY). If, exceptionally, you believe there is a legitimate reason why your presentation should not be streamed or recorded, you must seek our agreement before submitting it.
Main Tracks
Previous editions have featured main tracks centered around security, operating system development, community building, and many other topics. Presentations are expected to be 50 minutes long (including audience questions) and should cater to a varied technical audience. The conference covers reasonable travel expenses agreed in advance and arranges accommodation for accepted main track speakers if needed.
Proposals for main track presentations should be submitted using Pentabarf: https://fosdem.org/submit. If you already created an account in the system for a previous edition, please reuse it rather than re-registering.
Submissions will be reviewed in two batches, beginning with those received by 13 October. The final deadline is 3 November.
Questions or remarks? Contact us at program@fosdem.org.
Key dates:
- 13 October
- deadline for first batch of main track proposals
- 3 November
- final deadline for main track proposals
- 1 November onwards
- main track talks announced (in batches)
Developer Rooms
Developer rooms are assigned to self-organising groups to work together on open source and free software projects, to discuss topics relevant to a broader subset of the community, etc. Most content should take the form of presentations. Proposals involving collaboration across project or domain boundaries are strongly encouraged.
Developer room proposals should be submitted through the form at https://fosdem.org/devroom which contains further information.
Questions or remarks? Contact us at devrooms@fosdem.org.
Key dates:
- 20 September
- deadline for developer room proposals
- 2 October
- accepted developer rooms announced
- 16 October (or earlier)
- developer rooms issue Calls for Participation
- 15 December (or earlier)
- developer rooms publish complete schedules
Stands
FOSDEM offers open source and free software projects the opportunity to display their work during the event. At its stand, a project can share information, demo software, sell merchandise, give away goodies, and so on, and personally interact with the visitors.
What we offer
- one 180x80cm table, positioned in one of the buildings with developer rooms, for the entire duration of the conference. A second table is possible in a few cases, but the pressure on space means this is becoming increasingly rare and needs strong justification. Joint submissions that share a table between related projects will be favoured in the selection process.
- two chairs per table
- one power socket type C/E (if you require adapters or additional sockets, please bring them yourself)
- fast uplink shared wireless Internet access
To apply, please fill out the form at: https://fosdem.org/stands which contains further information.
Questions or remarks? Contact us at stands@fosdem.org.
Key dates
- 3 November
- deadline for stand proposals
- 20 November
- accepted stands announced
Lightning talks
Lighting talks are short — 15 minute long — talks on a wide variety of topics. Anyone who has something interesting to say about an open source or free software topic can apply. We particularly encourage topics that do not fit in any of the developer rooms.
Proposals for lightning talks should be submitted using Pentabarf: https://fosdem.org/submit. Please select "lightning Talks" in the "track" field. If you already created an account in the system for a previous edition, please reuse it rather than re-registering.
Questions or remarks? Contact us at lightningtalks@fosdem.org.
Key dates
- 24 November
- deadline for lightning talk proposals
- 15 December
- accepted lightning talks announced
All deadlines are at 23.59 UTC.