This year, we are doing FOSDEM virtual style! Every year in Brussels, Belgium, the first weekend of February is dedicated to the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting (FOSDEM), the largest open source, developer-oriented conference of the year. As expected, the conference is going online for the 2021 edition, which gives us Fedorans the chance to learn, share, and spend time with each other and the greater FOSS community. We need your help in making this a fun experience for everyone!

Fedora has a long history of attendance at FOSDEM (since 2006) and 2021 will not be an exception. We will miss seeing everyone’s faces in person this year, sharing a meal, giving IRL hugs… but, we are still excited to catch up with all of our Fedora friends, old and new!

FOSDEM 2021 will be held on February 6th & 7th and we would love for Fedorans to join us for the different activities we have planned. Fedora has its own webpage where you can join us and find out what we have planned for the FOSDEM weekend! Visiting a FOSDEM stand this year is little different.

Fedora Stand Welcome Session Chat Sign Up

Directly before the start of sessions on day, there will be a “Welcome Session” for each stand from 8:30-9AM UTC (9:30-10AM CET). It should also give us a pre-configured event room we can use to give a short live introduction and then just hang out at that time if desired. If you are interested and available to participate, please sign up on the wiki page.

Chat

The FOSDEM organizers have created a Fedora room on a dedicated Matrix server. You can either join the room directly and create a new Matrix account or join with a pre-existing account.

To join with a pre-existing account:

  • Go to the Element home page
  • Click “Explore more rooms”
  • Click on the dropdown list in order to add the FOSDEM server
  • On the bottom of the dropdown list click “Add a new server”
  • Enter “fosdem.org” and click “Add”
  • Join the Fedora chat

Social Hours

We are bringing our weekly Social Hour to FOSDEM! This is a great opportunity for Fedorans to connect with conference attendees. There will be two Social Hours: one on Saturday Feb 6th at 3PM UTC and one on Sunday Feb 7th 3PM UTC. Join us in our virtual booth!

Raffle

What would FOSDEM be without swag? In order to get that sweet swag into people’s hands this year, we are holding a raffle contest!

How to enter the raffle? Join our chat room to find the raffle entry link. You will need to enter your name and email address to enter. We will randomly draw 100 winners on February 8th, at 5PM UTC. The winners will receive a follow up form to provide shipment information. Terms & Conditions available on entry form.

Videos

The FOSDEM organizers have created a dedicated space for us to upload some videos to show-case our project. If you haven’t already watched we will have:

  • “State of Fedora” from Matthew Miller from Nest 2020
  • Unboxing of Lenovo laptop running Fedora
  • Fedora 33 Release Party videos
  • Budapest community video from Flock 2019

Can’t wait to see you there!