FOSDEM, the Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting, is an annual pilgrimage for open-source enthusiasts from all over the world. What started as a small gathering in 2000, originally named the Open Source Developers of Europe Meeting (OSDEM), has grown into one of the most significant conferences dedicated to free and open-source software. The event was founded by Raphael Bauduin, who wanted to create a space where developers could meet, exchange ideas, and collaborate in person. It quickly gained traction, attracting developers, contributors, and advocates from diverse projects. The conference gained its iconic name when the ‘F’ was added at the request of Richard Stallman, emphasizing the importance of free software.

Since its inception, FOSDEM has taken place every February in Brussels, Belgium, and has become a massive, volunteer-driven event. Massive? It became to the largest open-source conference on earth! The Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) provides the place, filling its lecture halls, classrooms, and corridors with thousands of attendees who come to participate in an extensive program of talks, workshops, and discussions. Each year, the conference expands in scope, featuring new tracks that cover a wide range of topics, from programming languages and security to cloud computing and embedded systems. The spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing remains at the heart of FOSDEM, with volunteers working tirelessly to ensure its success.

This year was special, as we celebrated the 25th anniversary of this extraordinary conference. The atmosphere was special, with a sense of nostalgia for how far the conference had come and excitement about the future of open-source development – this was also immediately represented by the traditional opening talk.

The conference remains free to attend, staying true to its core values of accessibility and community spirit. It continues to be a beacon for those who believe in the power of open collaboration, proving year after year that FOSDEM is not just an event, but a tradition that unites and inspires open-source developers worldwide.

Travel & Parking

Every year, I make the short 90-minute drive to FOSDEM since it’s such an easy trip from home. Driving there is always a pleasure – I love passing through the Netherlands and Belgium, and it gives me the flexibility to arrive early and (hopefully) grab a parking spot on the University campus. The key word here is early because if you’re not ahead of the crowd, finding a place to park can be a nightmare. One thing I always make sure to do beforehand is register my car for the Belgian emission zones – definitely not something you want to forget before entering the city.

This year, I made a quick 15 minute stop in Heusden-Zolder to charge up, just to be safe and avoid needing another charging break on the way back. Everything was going smoothly… until I actually arrived.

I got there at 7:30 AM, only to find that the gates to the parking lot were still locked. We were already lining up onto the streets, blocking traffic, and making the situation worse by the minute. I reached out to the FOSDEM team on Matrix chat, but even though my message was seen, not a single response came back. Just silence.

Thankfully, someone from the University eventually came to the rescue. A really kind girl helped us out, and with her assistance, we managed to get access using her University card. If it weren’t for her, who knows how long we would’ve been stuck there? So, huge thanks to her for saving the morning!

Talks & Events

Unlike in previous years, I decided to attend fewer talks and focus more on socializing. Of course, I couldn’t miss the “Welcome to FOSDEM 2025” talk, which is the traditional opening session for all attendees. It was very interesting to see how the FOSDEM grew up, even more and more and how many more talks, lightning talks have come up this year. Also new, the lightning-lightning talks which may only take 5 minutes which is perfect to tease a new project.

Another talk I attended was “Ten Years as a Free, Open, and Automated Certificate Authority,” which detailed Let’s Encrypt’s journey in revolutionizing the internet by offering free SSL/TLS certificates. The session covered the history of Let’s Encrypt since its first certificate was issued in 2015, and discussed topics like ACME renewal information (ARI), the OCSP revocation portal, and recent updates such as shorter-lived certificates and support for IP address certificates.

Lastly, I attended the “Immich: Self-hosted photo and video management solution” talk, which provided an overview of this open-source software. It highlighted how Immich helps users easily back up, browse, search, and organize their photos and videos.

BSD Devroom

And as a typical BSD guy (mostly FreeBSD), the BSD Devroom was my way to go which is thankfully well maintained by Rodrigo Osorio and Benny Siegert. But there’re of course also many other great talks around BSD systems – unfortunately a way too many ones for me to join them all – but to provide an overview of the Saturday:

• How FreeBSD security audits have improved our security culture
• Wake up, FreeBSD! Implementing Modern Standby with S0ix
• Tracking bulk builds in pkgsrc – from Cloud to NetBSD Native
• High Performance Packet filtering in BSD. A holistic review
• A packet’s journey through pf
• Making NetBSD as a fast(er) booting microvm
• Writing about FreeBSD
• FreeBSD audit source and other syslog-ng news

I was lucky to join the talks of Emilie ‘iMil’ Heitor with Making NetBSD as a fast(er) booting microvm and Pierre Pronchery and Michael Winser with their talk How FreeBSD security audits have improved our security culture.

Socializing

As I mentioned earlier, this visit was mainly about socializing, and it was absolutely fantastic. Reconnecting with so many old friends, including some I hadn’t seen in over a decade, was a real highlight. We shared countless stories, caught up on life, and just enjoyed each other’s company. Meeting friends from the internet was another amazing part – finally putting faces to names of people I’ve collaborated with on open-source projects for years but had never met in person.

The BSD Devroom was a great spot for real-life discussions, and I had a blast talking with people there. I also got to chat about my BoxyBSD project, where I provide free VPS instances to help people learn and explore BSD-based systems like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. It was awesome to see interest in that. I even got to reconnect with some folks from the illumos team, which was a nice surprise.

I was also really happy to meet so many people from Matrix and the Fediverse. And talking with BSD folks like Rodrigo, Benny, Emile, and others made for some really great conversations. One of the coolest moments was when several people spotted my ‘gyptazy’ shirt and came up to say hi – it was insanely great to meet you all!

All in all, this was such a great socializing event, and I’m really grateful for the experience.

Misc

Today it also was the Global Switch Day, a day where people were encouraged to move from proprietary solutions to open-source alternatives. Plenty of examples were shared, and you might find some listed here as well:

• X (Twitter) -> Mastodon
• Instagram -> Pixelfed
• WhatsApp -> Signal / Matrix
• Facebook -> Friendica
• YouTube -> Peer Tube
• TikTok -> Looks.video

People have been locked up for too long, stuck in a system that keeps them from real freedom. It’s time to break out of that mindset and realize that the future belongs to open-source and free technology. That’s where true innovation happens – where knowledge is shared, not hoarded. But with that freedom comes responsibility. People need to start taking their privacy and data protection seriously. Big corporations and governments aren’t going to do it for them. If they don’t wake up now, they’ll just be handing over control of their own lives. The future is open, but only if people are willing to take it.

I saw those LED sticks and bars at the last FrOSCon, but they were already sold out, which was a bit disappointing. Today, I finally came across them again and didn’t hesitate for a second—I bought one immediately. They’re fully programmable and can also be controlled via an app for both Android and iPhone. Right now, mine just displays “gyptazy.” If it looks weird or broken in the video, don’t worry- that’s just the refresh rate not syncing properly with my phone’s camera. It looks perfectly fine in reality!

The Bad Things

This year’s FOSDEM was honestly not the best experience for me. Organizing everything is getting more and more challenging, and I really felt the impact of that this time. Still, I want to give a huge thank you to the entire staff team for making it all happen, and an extra big shoutout to all the volunteers – especially the NOC and VOC teams. Without you, this event wouldn’t be possible.

I’ve always liked FOSDEM, and it’s incredible to see how it has grown into the biggest open-source conference in the world. But with that growth, it has also changed. It’s becoming way too crowded, and it feels like it’s shifting more towards being “mainstream”. There’s a lot more focus on quantity rather than quality, and I really miss the deep, technical discussions that you still get at smaller conferences. Another issue was to take part of a talk in general – often it already requires you to stay in a room to get a place and not being locked out of the talks you want to join. A tight schedule doesn’t even makes this better and many ones were upset because they were unable to participate the talk. Instead, they got told to see the recording or the live stream – which also makes it somehow absurd to join the conference in person.

Also, this year had an especially strange vibe, with some people trying to stir up controversy over certain sponsors getting the main auditorium for keynote events. There were even attempts to disrupt things with protests, but thankfully, none of that really had a visible impact on the event itself.

In 2026 I will probably also handle the things like this year – take the opportunity to socialize with all the people! It was great to meet you (again)!