My First FOSDEM

I’ve wanted to attend FOSDEM for the last few years, and I finally made it this year for my first time. I came with two friends from my previous job and it was a blast. I’ve read beforehand whatever I could about the conference but it still took the first day to understand how to get around the conference.

Talks

Each of us made a list of talks we wanted to attend. Of course there were overlapping talks but we were ready for that. I’ve also read to not overdo the talks since it’s very tiring. Still the first talk we tried to attend was full with no chance of getting in. We cut our losses and went to the stands which were great although also a bit crowded.

Then we tried our chance again with a different talk, this time in a bigger room and with a less well-known speaker so we managed to get in. We actually got in 10 minutes into the previous talk which we didn’t care about but seemed really interesting. The talk we tried to get to was okay but the last 10 minutes from the previous talk made me realize that part of the fun in FOSDEM, at least for me, is the vast range of technology in there.

So for the next day, I didn’t care too much about the talk content. I tried to look beforehand if the speaker is interesting and that was enough for me. We’ve also realized that a few talks are enough for today since there’s a lot of walking around the campus.

Stands

The stands were crowded but you get to meet interesting people. It felt a bit weird talking over a desk, felt like approaching a professor. I still managed to discuss some stuff I wanted with the people there and of course got cool stickers.

Food

Not sure if someone managed to eat from the food trucks without getting messy. Something to work on for next year.

Takeaway

The trip ignited my love for free software once again. I’ve set up a new Mastodon server for me and my friends. I already had one but I’ve wanted to migrate to a smaller one for a while. I’ve also bought a Furiphone which I actually haven’t heard about before but the people at the Furilabs stand were great and it gave me confidence in the product¹.