FOSDEM - The Good Parts and the Not-So-Good Parts

I'm just back from my first ever FOSDEM - a megaconference dedicated to Free and Open Source technology and culture. It was epic. I'm still ruminating on the experience, but here are my first impressions of what did and didn't work.

The Good Bits

Really, it is a dozen conferences squeezed into one. Over a thousand talks, on a seemingly infinite array of subjects, about a million people crammed into one tram from Brussels city centre, and a panoply of wonderful humans with crazy ideas on how to change the world.

Every single talk I went to was interesting, the conversations in the hallways were friendly and entertaining, the vegan food wasn't too overpriced, and I only met one crypto-bro.

The speakers were reasonably diverse and - get this - young! It sometimes can seem like FOSS is dominated by greybeards but, so it appears, the future is in safe (albeit annoyingly youthful) hands.

It is obvious that a great deal of care an attention has gone in to making it a welcoming and safe environment. Most rooms had information about the code of conduct. Old universities are hilariously inept at providing maps, so there were helpful signs up everywhere. Even the toilets had QR codes so you could let volunteers know if there was a critical shortage of paper!

The volunteers make the event. Each one I spoke to was friendly, helpful, and knowledgable. The event (mostly) ran like clockwork and shows what a determined and well-directed team of people can do if given sufficient motivation and autonomy. (I did my volunteering before the event by fixing bits of the website.)

Overall, an excellent experience. Mostly.

The Not-So-Good

Look, it's a volunteer run event which successfully handles ~9k attendees and > 1k talks. These are all fairly minor snags. But, as a first time attendee, there were a few things which rankled me a bit.

Venue

The biggest issue is Université libre de Bruxelles. The university is very dilapidated. The seats are uncomfortable, the toilets are grim, and many of the rooms are not accessible. Of course, it is a historic venue and there isn't much the FOSDEM team can do about some of the structural issues, but I think they should feed-back to the university where improvements are needed.

Specifically:

• Water fountains. As far as I could tell, there was only one working fountain in the whole campus. Several seemed to have been deliberately closed off.
• Lifts / Elevators either not working or not available. For example, the community room was up five flights of stairs. That's a challenge for a lot of people, and an impossibility for some.
• Windows and ventilation. I appreciate not every room can have modern HVAC, but the CO₂ monitors were frequently in the red. Some rooms had windows which were locked shut. Unacceptable given the risk of Covid and Flu.

I accept that it is unlikely FOSDEM can fix all of these unilaterally. I don't think it is realistic to change location now that it is an established - and much loved - venue. But the ULB needs to be told that its facilities are inadequate and need urgent improvement. To be fair, it probably knows that it has some issues, but I think they are worth pointing out specifically.

AV & Hosting

For the most-part, the AV worked. Yes, people with Macs didn't know how to set up external screens, and HMDI connections occasionally freaked out, but those are all user error WONTFIX.

• Some sessions over-ran egregiously. That's disrespectful to the audience (who may need to get to a different session) and downright rude to the next presenter (who needs a few minutes to set up). While that's partly the fault of under-prepared presenters, it is the responsibility of the room host to be ruthless with the timekeeping. I did see a few speakers being told "your time is up, you have to stop" - but not enough.
• Some of the rooms didn't have heralds or timekeepers. I'm a bit old-fashioned and think it is nice to have someone say "And now, please welcome our next speaker…" so that the speaker can start with a round of applause. It lets everyone know the talk is starting and to pay attention.
• Audio in Janson. I was given contradictory information about whether the main stage would have audio but was then reassured that it would be fine. I then discovered the only way to have sound play from my slides was to hold the microphone to the speakers! I think that's a bit rubbish but it would have been fine if it was communicated to me in advance.

In short, speakers need to be better prepared, volunteers need to be empowered to shut them up, and everyone needs to be told in advance what equipment will be available in their rooms.

Matrix

*sigh* FOSDEM must be full of Matrix's target audience. But the whole experience was underwhelming.

• The flagship ElementX app is buggy and missing several crucial features. It gives a bad impression of the service when basic functionality just doesn't work.
• There was a lot of confusion with how Rooms (or is it channels? Or spaces?) were set up. Speakers were told to go to one room, then redirected, then re-invited. Confusing and frustrating.
• No one was using it! Even in the main channels, there were only a few messages per hour. Nothing compared to Mastodon or Bluesky. There wasn't much pushing of Matrix, so maybe most people were in private Signal / Telegram / WhatsApp groups with friends (I know I was).

Ultimately, Matrix needs to have a serious look at its quality issues otherwise it will become as irrelevant as IRC. Similarly, I think the organisers should decide whether Matrix meets the needs of attendees or if a different platform is more suitable.

Verdict

A simply wonderful event. I was thrilled to be selected to speak, and am incredibly grateful to FOSDEM for subsidising my trip with a hotel room.

My brain is fizzing with new ideas and my laptop is groaning under the weight of new stickers.

I would love to come again next year. Although speaking was great fun, it was exhausting doing two sessions. So I'll probably be a bit more of a tourist.

I'm now off to sleep for a hundred years in an attempt to recover from the intensity!