“FOSDEM is what happens between February 3rd and January 31st every year”.

This is what I was thinking about on my flight back on Monday, February 3rd.

It’s my second FOSDEM, and the first time I’m writing about it.

I still remember the imposter syndrome I felt the year before, just before leaving. I was nervous and, up until the very last minute, I thought about not going. Thankfully, I did.

But this year, the story was completely different. I think I started looking for the exact dates for 2025 back in August 2024. I booked my flight shortly after the post on Mastodon announcing that, once again, it would take place on the first and second days of February. I spent days reading about the various devrooms and thinking about how to organize myself.

But, as always, every well-made plan in the days leading up to the event goes out the window as soon as you land at Brussels Airport.

As soon as I arrived, I ran into people I hadn’t seen in months or, in some cases, since the previous year. After the greetings, it almost becomes mandatory to ask, “So, which talks are you attending?”.

Because if there’s one thing that made me fall in love with FOSDEM right from the start, it’s the open-source “workshop” vibe—an open-air brainstorming hub.

But unlike what happens online, there you have real people who exchange ideas in person. You discover things you never thought existed or might be of interest to you, and, even more, you keep refining what kind of developer you want to be.

I left home with the idea of following two main devrooms:

  • Cloud native databases
  • Testing and continuous delivery

But, as I said earlier, every plan goes out the window.

As soon as I checked into the hotel, I opened the FOSDEM Companion app and immediately headed to a devroom I’d tried my best to ignore: Kernel. Even though the only devroom I attended from start to finish last year was the microkernel one, I had decided this year to avoid rooms unrelated to my day-to-day work.

But hey, if you’re going to FOSDEM, you’re there because you’re passionate about certain things, not just to figure out what the JavaScript framework of the year is.

And I’m glad I threw my plans out the window. In the end, I rewrote my schedule in the hotel:

  • Kernel
  • Testing and continuous delivery
  • eBPF

I also planned to attend talks in the RISC-V, Container, and Go devrooms, but, well, you can’t do everything in those two days.

Because FOSDEM is truly massive. Almost a hundred devrooms and thousands of talks in just two days.

If there’s one thing I liked less compared to last year, it was the stands. They were still plentiful, to be clear, but last year I came home loaded with gadgets and t-shirts. This year, I didn’t even have time to buy the official FOSDEM t-shirt. I wonder if they sell them online…well, I’ll find out.

On the plus side, I bought an amazing LED badge at the FOSSASIA stand, which I plan to dive deep into. In fact, I’ve already started tinkering with it in the hotel, to be honest.

For sure, the thing that continues to be the real core of FOSDEM is the people. Meeting those you haven’t seen in a while and getting to know new people is the true highlight of this conference.

Exchanging ideas, advice, but also just going to lunch and chatting about all kinds of things remains the best experience.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve truly realized only after attending my first FOSDEM, it’s this: open source is the people who make it. And there are quite a few people who have worked on and shaped some of the biggest open-source projects out there.

Once again, I’ve stocked up on talks to watch once all the recordings are released. I’ve already started with a few from the Go devroom.

And, just like last year, FOSDEM has given me enough energy and ideas to tackle this year.

That’s why FOSDEM is what happens between February 3rd and January 31st every year.

Next stop: first kernel patch.