FOSDEM is one of the largest gatherings of Free Software contributors in the world and happens each year in Brussels (Belgium) at the ULB Campus Solbosch. In 2019, it was be held on Saturday, February 2nd, and Sunday, February 3rd.

This was my 3rd year going to FOSDEM, with the two previous years participating and helping at the LibreOffice and Open Source Design booths. This year though, I was part of the Fedora Project and OSD booth.

I applied to help at the booth as a Fedora Ambassador and landed in Brussels a few days before the event. This gave me some time to wander around the city and visit Brugge, which was a beautiful city.

Brugge

On Friday morning, Brian asked me to help him with the Fedora booth over at the CentOS Dojo event at the Marriott Grand Place Hotel. I arrived there at 9 AM and stayed during the whole day. There were some interesting talks over at the CentOS room and the PostgreSQL one.

Fedora booth at CentOS Dojo

As always, on Friday evening there’s the FOSDEM pre-party held at Delirium Taphouse Bar, but this time I didn’t go as there’s way too many people around.

As always, FOSDEM started early morning on Saturday. It was snowing heavily but this didn’t stop people from arriving.

Snow on Saturday

We set-up the booth, with the Fedora roll-up banner, tablecloth, a Fedorator, an old Sugar on a Stick laptop and plenty of stickers and swag.

Time goes by really fast when at the booths and the first day was already towards the end. Unfortunately, I still didn’t manage to follow any talk (same as past years).

The second day was a bit warmer and the sky was clear. We had 2-hour shifts for the booth but I couldn’t stay much there because I was also helping at the OSD booth and had helped on Friday too.

About the OSD booth, this year we had plenty more visitors come over at our booth and ask questions, also the devroom was full of people. Unlike past year, I missed the group photo because I was again running around the campus. No talk this second day either.

All in all, FOSDEM was a nice event, I met old friends and new ones alike, but I can’t talk much about the quality of the presentations, as I didn’t manage to follow any.

See you there next year! 😊

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