Tag: Events

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.NET Day on Agentic Modernization Coming Soon

Join us on December 9, 2025 between 9AM-1PM Pacific for .NET Day of Agentic Modernization! This is a free, one-day virtual event focused on the latest tooling, techniques, and guidance for modernizing your .NET applications. Whether you’re upgrading legacy code, preparing for cloud workloads, or exploring how AI and agentic patterns fit into your architecture, this event will show you what’s possible with today’s tooling while keeping reliability, security, and developer control front and center. Buckle up because we’ll be demo heavy and you can get your questions answered live!

.NET Day on Agentic Modernization event banner

Agenda

We have 8 great sessions throughout the event that will be broadcast live. Tune in and get your questions answered from the presenters!

🚀 Choose Your Modernization Adventure with GitHub Copilot with Brady Gaster – See how GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio speed app modernization- upgrading code, fixing dependencies, and guiding secure, cloud-ready migrations into Azure.

⚙️ Agentic DevOps: Enhancing .NET Web Apps with Azure MCP with Yun Jung Choi – Learn how AI-powered tooling and Azure MCP streamline .NET app development-code, storage, SQL, and IaC workflows-with faster, smarter Azure-ready delivery.

🛡️ Fix It Before They Feel It: Proactive .NET Reliability with Azure SRE Agent with Deepthi Chelupati and Shamir Abdul Aziz – See how Azure SRE Agent and App Insights detect .NET regressions, automate rollbacks, and streamline incident prevention with custom agents and health checks.

☁️ No‑Code Modernization for ASP.NET with Managed Instance on Azure App Service with Andrew Westgarth and Gaurav Seth – See how Azure App Service Managed Instance removes ASP.NET migration blockers-enabling fast modernization, better performance, lower TCO, and integration with modern agentic workflows.

🤖 Modernization Made Simple: Building Agentic Solutions in .NET with Bruno Capuano – Learn how to add the Agent Framework to existing .NET apps – unlocking multi-agent collaboration, memory, and tool orchestration with practical, fast-start guidance.

💪 Bulletproof Agents with the Durable Task Extension for Microsoft Agent Framework with Chris Gillum and Thiago Almeida – See how the Durable Extension for the Microsoft Agent Framework brings durable, distributed, deterministic, and debuggable AI agents to Azure—enabling reliable, scalable, production-ready agentic workflows.

🔐 Securely Unleash AI Agents on Azure SQL and SQL Server with Davide Mauri – Learn how to let AI agents work safely with Azure SQL – enforcing strict security, least-privilege access, and schema-aware techniques that prevent data leaks and query errors.

⚡ Secure and Smart AI Agents Powered by Azure Redis with Catherine Wang – See how Azure Redis powers secure, streamlined data access for .NET agentic apps – using MCP, Redis-backed tools, and modern security patterns to simplify development.

Tune in

Don’t miss this opportunity to get practical, real-world guidance on modernizing .NET applications for Azure, AI, and agentic patterns. Mark your calendars and get ready for .NET Day on Agentic Modernization!

Register for .NET Day on Agentic Modernization
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Fedora at Kirinyaga University – Docs workshop

Kirinyaga University students group photo

We did it again, Fedora at Kirinyaga university in Kenya. This time, we didn’t just introduce what open source is – we showed students how to participate and actually contribute in real time.

Many students had heard of open source before, but were not sure how to get started or where they could fit. We did it hands-on and began with a simple explanation of what open source is: people around the world working together to create tools, share knowledge, and support each other. Fedora is one of these communities. It is open, friendly, and built by different people with different skills.

We talked about the many ways someone can contribute, even without deep technical experience. Documentation, writing guides, design work, translation, testing software, and helping new contributors are all important roles in Fedora. Students learned that open source is not only for “experts.” It is also for learners. It is a place to grow.

Hands-on Documentation Workshop

A room full of kirinyaga students on a worskhop

After the introduction, we moved into a hands-on workshop. We opened Fedora Docs and explored how documentation is structured. Students learned how to find issues, read contribution instructions, and make changes step-by-step. We walked together through:

  • Opening or choosing an issue to work on
  • Editing documentation files
  • Making a pull request (PR)
  • Writing a clear contribution message

By the end of the workshop, students had created actual contributions that went to the Fedora project. This moment was important. It showed them that contributing is not something you wait to do “someday.” You can do it today.

“This weekend’s Open Source Event with Fedora, hosted by the Computer Society Of Kirinyaga, was truly inspiring! 💻

Through the guidance of Cornelius Emase, I was able to make my first pull request to the Fedora Project Docs – my first ever contribution to the open-source world. 🌍”
– Student at Kirinyaga University

Thank you note

Huge appreciation to:

  • Jona Azizaj — for steady guidance and mentorship.
  • Mat H. — for backing the vision of regional community building.
  • Fedora Mindshare Team — for supporting community growth here in Kenya.
  • Computer Society of Kirinyaga — for hosting and bringing real energy into the room.

And to everyone who played a part – even if your name isn’t listed here, I see you. You made this possible.

Growing the next generation

The students showed interest, curiosity, and energy. Many asked how they can continue contributing and how to connect with the wider Fedora community. I guided them to Fedora Docs, Matrix community chat rooms, and how they can be part of the Fedora local meetups here in Kenya.

We are introducing open source step-by-step in Kenya. There is a new generation of students who want to be part of global technology work. They want to learn, collaborate, and build. Our role is to open the door and walk together(I have a discourse post on this, you’re welcome to add your views).

A group photo of students after the workshop

What Comes Next

This event is part of a growing movement to strengthen Fedora’s presence in Kenya. More events will follow so that learning and contributing can continue.

We believe that open source becomes strong when more people are included. Fedora is a place where students in Kenya can learn, grow, share, and contribute to something global.

We already had a Discourse thread running for this event – from the first announcement, planning, and budget proposal, all the way to the final workshop. Everything happened in the open. Students who attended have already shared reflections there, and anyone who wants to keep contributing or stay connected can join the conversation.

You can check the events photos submitted here on Google photos(sorry that’s not FOSS:))

Cornelius Emase,
Your Friend in Open Source(Open Source Freedom Fighter)

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Announcing Flock to Fedora 2026 (14-16 June): Join Us in Prague!

Banner image for the Flock to Fedora 2026 conference. The image shows Colúr, the animated mascot of Flock, holding a megaphone. The "Flock" logo appears with "Prague, Czech Republic" and "June 14 - 16, 2026" written below the Flock logo.

The official dates and location are set for Flock to Fedora 2026, the premier annual conference for Fedora Project contributors. The event will take place from 14-16 June 2026, in Prague, Czechia.

For Flock 2026, we are returning to the Vienna House by Wyndham Andel’s Prague, located at:

Stroupeznickeho 21
Prague, 150 00
Czech Republic

While all three days will be full conference days, the arrangement of the schedule will change slightly in 2026. Sunday, 14 June, will be designated as Day 0, featuring workshops, team meetups, and hands-on contributor sessions. The main conference activities, including streamed content, the opening keynote, and other sessions, are scheduled for Monday, 15 June, and Tuesday, 16 June.

Coordinated Scheduling with DevConf CZ

Following community feedback from last year, Flock 2026 has been scheduled to align more closely with DevConf.CZ. The conference will conclude just before DevConf.CZ begins in Brno (18-20 June 2026). This compressed travel schedule is intended to make it easier for community members who wish to attend both events.

Call for Proposals & Conference Themes

The Call for Proposals (CFP) for Flock 2026 will open in early December 2025 and close shortly after FOSDEM 2026 (31 January – 1 February). Speaker confirmations are scheduled to be sent in March 2026.

For Flock 2026, we are taking a more focused approach to session content. The Fedora Council, FESCo, and the Mindshare Committee are shaping key themes for the CFP. All presentation and workshop submissions should align with one of these themes. More details will be shared when the CFP opens.

Planning for Flock 2026

Here is what you need to know to plan your attendance:

  • Registration: Conference registration is scheduled to open in January 2026.
  • Sponsorship: Is your company or organization interested in sponsoring Flock 2026? Our sponsorship prospectus for Flock 2026 is now available on the Flock 2026 website. Organizations interested in supporting Flock and the Fedora community are encouraged to review the prospectus and contact the organizing team with any questions.
  • Hotel Block: A discounted block of rooms is arranged at the conference hotel. More information about the discounted hotel block can be found on the Flock website.
  • Travel Day & Connections: 17 June is designated as a free travel day between Flock to Fedora 2026 and DevConf.CZ. Frequent bus and train connections are available for travel between Prague and Brno.
  • Sponsored Travel: We intend to offer sponsored travel again for Flock to Fedora 2026. More details will follow in December 2025.

Get Involved & Ask Questions

The official Flock to Fedora 2026 Matrix room, #flock:fedoraproject.org, is the best place to connect with organizers and other community members. We encourage you to join the channel for the latest updates and to ask any questions you may have.

Flock to Fedora 2026 web site

A Note on Our Flock to Fedora 2026 & 2027 Plans

We recognize that returning to the same city and venue for a second consecutive year is a departure from Flock’s tradition. This decision was made intentionally with two key goals in mind.

First, by working with a familiar venue, our organizing team can optimize its processes and plan further in advance. This stability for Flock to Fedora 2026 will give us more opportunity to improve our internal processes and explore new ways to incorporate community input into the design of Fedora’s flagship contributor conference.

Second, this allows us to plan for a significant change in 2027. The Flock organizing team is committed to exploring new locations for Flock 2027, with a particular focus on regions outside of North America and Europe. We acknowledge the travel difficulties many of our contributors in regions like LATAM and APAC face. We learned valuable lessons from past planning cycles and are eager to achieve this goal, while also recognizing that unforeseen circumstances can impact our plans. We will work with community members in these regions to explore possible options and conduct thorough research on pricing and availability for 2027.

We look forward to seeing you in Prague for Flock 2026, 14-16 June.

— The Flock to Fedora Planning Team

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Contribute at the Test Week for the Anaconda WebUI Installer for Fedora Workstation

The Workstation team is working on the final integration of Anaconda WebUI Installer for Fedora Linux Workstation. As a result, the Fedora Workstation Working Group and QA teams have organized a test week from Monday, Aug 28, 2023 to Monday, Sept 04, 2023. The wiki page in this article contains links to the test images you’ll need to participate. Please continue reading for details.

How does a test week work?

A test week is an event where anyone can help ensure changes in Fedora Linux work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed before, this is a perfect way to get started.

To contribute, you only need to be able to do the following things:

  • Download test materials, which include some large files
  • Read and follow directions step by step

The wiki page for the Anaconda WebUI test week has a lot of good information on what and how to test. After you’ve done some testing, you can log your results in the test day web application. If you’re available on or around the days of the event, please do some testing and report your results. We have a document which provides all the necessary steps.

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Contribute at the Fedora Linux Test Week for Kernel 6.4

The kernel team is working on final integration for Linux kernel 6.4. This version was just recently released, and will arrive soon in Fedora Linux. As a result, the Fedora Linux kernel and QA teams have organized a test week from Sunday, July 09, 2023 to Sunday, July 16, 2023. The wiki page in this article contains links to the test images you’ll need to participate. Please continue reading for details.

How does a test week work?

A test week is an event where anyone can help ensure changes in Fedora Linux work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed before, this is a perfect way to get started.

To contribute, you only need to be able to do the following things:

  • Download test materials, which include some large files
  • Read and follow directions step by step

The wiki page for the kernel test day has a lot of good information on what and how to test. After you’ve done some testing, you can log your results in the test day web application. If you’re available on or around the days of the event, please do some testing and report your results. We have a document which provides all the necessary steps.

Happy testing, and we hope to see you on one of the test days.

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Contribute at the Fedora Linux Test Week for Kernel 6.3

The kernel team is working on final integration for Linux kernel 6.3. This version was just recently released, and will arrive soon in Fedora Linux. As a result, the Fedora Linux kernel and QA teams have organized a test week from Sunday, May 07, 2023 to Sunday, May 14, 2023. Refer to the wiki page in this article for links to the test images you’ll need to participate. Please continue reading for details.

How does a test week work?

A test week is an event where anyone can help make sure changes in Fedora Linux work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed before, this is a perfect way to get started.

To contribute, you only need to be able to do the following things:

  • Download test materials, which include some large files
  • Read and follow directions step by step

The wiki page for the kernel test day has a lot of good information on what and how to test. After you’ve done some testing, you can log your results in the test day web application. If you’re available on or around the days of the event, please do some testing and report your results. We have a document which provides all the necessary steps.

Happy testing, and we hope to see you on one of the test days.

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The Community Platform Engineering F2F 2023 Experience – Part I

20 Mar 2023 – 23 Mar 2023

Barcelona, Spain

Intro

The Community Platform Engineering team is a Red Hat-sponsored team dedicated to the Fedora Project and CentOS Project that contributes to developing limited-scoped projects called initiatives, maintaining the community infrastructure, and helping manage releases of our offerings. As a remote-only team, the members were unable to get many opportunities to strategize the next big thing as a team and to bond with their fellow teammates beyond the scope of the designated work. Owing to the fact that the last team face-to-face meeting took place in Waterford City, Ireland in 2019, it became necessary for the team to meet up again when the travel restrictions started loosening up. After all, the popular saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” applies to everyone — even to community members and teammates, right?

Barcelona, Spain was selected as the destination for the team face-to-face meeting and the duration was picked to be from 20th March 2023 to 23rd March 2023. As this was going to be one of the first times that people started embarking on travels again after a long spell of inactivity during COVID-19, the management made sure to begin the travel planning and event management well in advance to account for everyone in the team. This was no small feat to achieve considering the fact that the team had grown significantly since the last team face-to-face meeting; both in terms of member counts and scope diversity. The common accommodation point was chosen to be Hotel Abba Balmoral, Barcelona for the entire team, which is located at the very heart of the city and around a walking distance from the nearest Red Hat office.

Day 0

Whilst a few team members flew into Barcelona on Sunday, many flew in throughout the day and took a cab to the hotel on Monday. As nothing was planned on the agenda for the day, it was spent by the teammates mostly getting to know each other, snacking on regional delicacies, and resting after the long flights people had gone through to get here. It was surprising to see just how many team members were getting to meet each other for the first time here and could not before, either because they were new to the team or were working on greatly different things. Some members decided to recce the Red Hat office located close by to the hotel at Travessera de Garcia, Barcelona, and snacking joints while others decided to rest up during the afternoon before heading together to the planned dinner at 1930 in a local Indian restaurant.

From left to right – Diego Herrera, Nils Philippsen, Michal Konecny, Troy Dawson, Pedro Moura, Stefan Mattejiet, and Akashdeep Dhar

With the evening finding its way into the day, the team united at the hotel lobby at 1900 and started heading over to the authentic Indian restaurant called Bar Bar, which was again a walking distance from the hotel. Being a cuisine that most of the teammates did not try previously, Akashdeep Dhar volunteered to guide folks through the menu – suggesting delicacies to try (or avoid) based on their preferences of flavor. For a team consisting of members hailing from across a variety of time zones and countries, having food and sharing anecdotes was indeed a magically unifying experience. After the dinner got over, some people stayed back to click pictures with the friends they made, some headed off for some more snacks in a nearby cafe and the remaining folks returned back to the hotel to get some much-needed respite.

Day 1

After the team had a joint breakfast from around 0700 to 0900, the members started heading off to the office in small groups to start off with the first (official) day of the event. Once all members settled down in a meeting room, the face-to-face meeting started off with the opening delivered by Stefan Mattejiet, following which a fun session was conducted to understand how well the members know each other by drawing each other’s faces. The next session was conducted by Akashdeep Dhar where he talked about the importance of mentorship within the team as well as in the community and organized an activity where the team, divided into multiple subteams, were asked to enact different scenarios of mentor-mentee interactions. Following that they dispersed into small groups and headed to their preferred places for lunch.

From left to right – Stephen Gallagher, Aurelien Bompard, Emma Kidney, Akashdeep Dhar, Michal Konecny, Samyak Jain, David Fan and Fabian Arrotin

Once the team members were back in the office, Michal Konecny started off the next session about how knowledge can be effectively shared in the team, which proved to be really helpful. This was added to by the next session conducted jointly by Aoife Moloney, Kevin Fenzi, and Julia Bley, around understanding what the team skills are and what their interests lie in. The members were lining up their creative thoughts as sticky notes that were grouped under a certain focus topic. As we moved on to the later parts of the day, Troy Dawson organized a group story session where we came together to come up with fun stories and it was really surprising to see how creative people could get using just one or two words. Finally, Matthew Miller gave us a brief yet interesting run through the history of 35 Fedora Linux releases in around 35 minutes. 

Matthew Miller giving a run-through of 35 releases of Fedora Linux in 35 minutes

With the last talk having been completed, the team members headed back to the hotel for a brief respite before they reunited again for a touring walk at 1630. When the team got to Plaça de Catalunya, the members were divided into two groups and were provided with a couple of tour guides who took them through the famous historical structures of Barcelona. It was an enriching experience to get to know about the history that led to the creation of these fascinating architectural creations and the team members took plenty of photographs to retain the memories. The tour got over by around 1930 after which the team members went to a local restaurant, Taller de Tapas to enjoy regional Spanish cuisine. A wide variety of mouth-watering Tapas delicacies were served with drinks, culminating the first day of the meeting on a high note.

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Contribute at the Fedora CoreOS, Upgrade, and IoT Test Days

Fedora test days are events where anyone can help make certain that changes in Fedora work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed to Fedora before, this is a perfect way to get started.

There are five upcoming test days in the next two weeks covering three topics:

  • Tues 28 March through Sunday 02 April, is to test the Fedora CoreOS.
  • Wed March 28th through March 31st , is to test the Upgrade
  • Monday April 03 through April 07 , is to test Fedora IoT .

Come and test with us to make Fedora 38 even better. Read more below on how to do it.

Fedora 38 CoreOS Test Week

The Fedora 38 CoreOS Test Week focuses on testing FCOS based on Fedora 38. The FCOS next stream is already rebased on Fedora 38 content, which will be coming soon to testing and stable. To prepare for the content being promoted to other streams the Fedora CoreOS and QA teams have organized test days on Tues, March 28, 2023 (results accepted through Sun , November 12). Refer to the wiki page for links to the test cases and materials you’ll need to participate. The FCOS and QA team will meet and communicate with the community sync on a Google Meet at the beginning of test week and async over multiple matrix/element channels. Read more about them in this announcement.

Upgrade test day

As we come closer to Fedora Linux 38 release dates, it’s time to test upgrades. This release has a lot of changes and it becomes essential that we test the graphical upgrade methods as well as the command line. As a part of these test days, we will test upgrading from a full updated, F36 and F37 to F38 for all architectures (x86_64, ARM, aarch64) and variants (WS, cloud, server, silverblue, IoT).

IoT test week

For this test week, the focus is all-around; test all the bits that come in a Fedora IoT release as well as validate different hardware. This includes:

  • Basic installation to different media
  • Installing in a VM
  • rpm-ostree upgrades, layering, rebasing
  • Basic container manipulation with Podman.

We welcome all different types of hardware, but have a specific list of target hardware for convenience.

How do test days work?

A test day is an event where anyone can help make certain that changes in Fedora work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. Test days are the perfect way to start contributing if you not in the past.

The only requirement to get started is the ability to download test materials (which include some large files) and then read and follow directions step by step.

Detailed information about all the test days are on the wiki page links provided above. If you are available on or around the days of the events, please do some testing and report your results.

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The Fedora Project FOSDEM 23 Experience

A measure of growth is most apparent when scaled across a span of different times and situations. That applies to folks getting to see you after a long time, to vegetation left alone to spread and of course, to communities having their first meetup after a prolonged spell of online-bound interactions. FOSDEM 23 happened to be one of the first times after around three years that community members from across the world met in person with each other in Brussels, Belgium. With new and old faces alike, their time was well spent representing the community, exhibiting to the wider free and open-source communities the good stuff that they have been keeping themselves busy with and most importantly, bonding with their Fedora friends.

This year FOSDEM took place on 4th February ’23 and 5th February ’23 at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Campus du Solbosch, Avenue F. D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium. This free event was participated by over 8000 software engineering enthusiasts from across the world, had around 36 lightning talks and around 771 talks spanning 55 designated devrooms. Contributors from our community did not restrict their participation in the event as just attendees but they also enthusiastically volunteered to be stand keepers in the Fedora Project booth, speakers for a variety of talks and lectures, organizers for a set of devrooms and even as ground staff for making FOSDEM 23 a grand success.

Representation in booth

Fedora Project had its official booth in Building H of the Université Libre de Bruxelles campus, near the booths belonging to our friends at CentOS Project and GNOME Project. The desks were set up on time with a display showing the FOSDEM 23 attendee badge QR code and an assorted set of Fedora Project swags for taking (like keycaps with the Fedora logo, USB flash drives with Fedora branding, stickers and clips with the branding of Fedora subteams/SIGs/workgroups like NeuroFedora and Workstation, webcam covers with the Fedora logo and much more). We were also thankfully provided with a jar of jelly bears to offer to our booth attendees and a set of stickers from our friends at the AlmaLinux community.

With a designated booth duty schedule planned beforehand by our community members, the booth was constantly looked after by at least three staff members at any point in time and attended to hundreds of booth visitors throughout the course of the event. The booth visitors were excited to interact with our booth staff members, shared their own fun experiences of using Fedora Linux for a purpose of their choice and asked questions about participating in the community. We also teamed up with our friends from CentOS Project to combine our efforts into managing our booths together and moving our resources to/from the FOSDEM locker room. To sum it up, we really appreciate the community’s participation in our official booth.

Speaking about innovation

Contributors participating in the Fedora Project community were eager to share what they know about what they have been working and that took place in the form of multiple talks/lectures for a variety of devrooms during FOSDEM 23. Ranging from the latest Fedora Linux remix running on Apple Silicon hardware to improving the experience of video gaming on GNU/Linux distributions, from summing up the helpful outcomes of one of the first open-source creative conferences to building a web-based installer for Fedora Linux, our members were involved in providing a great deal of quality content and were met by wide acclaim from halls filled with enthusiastic attendees.

The delivered talks/lectures were not only useful in letting others know about all the cool things we have been working on but also instrumental in garnering feedback from the wider free and open-source software communities as to how we can do better. The attendees were eager to ask their questions at the end of the respective talks and curious to know about the directions that our projects, activities and developments were headed, thereby helping the speaker establish their network and also, potentially onboarding contributors. The following is the list of talks/lectures associated with the Fedora Project, the links of which can be followed to access the recordings and shared presentation assets.

Helping with devrooms

Being a volunteer-driven conference with only a few people working around the year to make it happen, FOSDEM entirely relies on free and open-source enthusiasts to contribute their efforts to organizing and running a variety of devrooms. FOSDEM has set up internet connectivity and projectors to ensure the teams can meet, discuss, hack and publicly showcase their latest developments in the form of lightning talks, news, discussions, talks and lectures. These devrooms cover a wide range of diverse topics, giving all enthusiasts a platform to show what they have been working on, learn what is current in the field of their interest and benefit from the discussions that take place about their topic.

Ranging from language-specific devrooms to those about community governance, contributors participating in the Fedora Project community got involved in not only delivering talks/lectures in these devrooms but also volunteering to make these a grand success. From running a live microphone for attending to popping up questions to flagging flashcards to show speakers how much time they have left, from setting up the wireless microphone for every new speaker coming to the stage to cleaning up everything after the event is wrapped up – FOSDEM appreciates the community participation and we are all about it. Following is a list of devrooms that were helped by Fedora Community members.

Making FOSDEM successful

Donning the bright orange FOSDEM volunteer tees are our proud force of FOSDEM ground staff who devote their time to making sure that everything goes smoothly while organizing the conference. From introducing speakers before their talk/lecture begins to running cash registers at the counter selling official FOSDEM tee, from attending to the FOSDEM cloakroom containing booth and devroom assets to providing directions to the lost speakers rushing to their devrooms – needless to mention that FOSDEM would not have been possible without them. Here as well, one of our long-time Fedora Project contributors, Bogomil Shopov volunteered during FOSDEM 23 as their official ground staff.

Other events

Beyond FOSDEM 23, the contributors participating in the Fedora Project community participated in a bunch of meetups happening around the same time which further helped enrich the networking opportunities for our members. This not only led to our community spanning far and wide to those of others like OpenSUSE, GNOME etc. but to also learning and adapting from what the other communities do best while collaborating with them. We participated in the day-long CentOS Connect event on 3rd February ’23, Google’s FLOSS Foundations Dinner 2023 on 3rd February ’23, Google’s Mentorship Meetup and Fedora & CentOS Friends Dinner on 4th February ’23, and GitHub’s SustainOSS Meetup on 5th February ’23.

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Fedora Project at FOSDEM 2023

Fedora Project will be present at FOSDEM 2023. This article describes this gathering and a few of the events on the agenda. I assume if you are reading the Fedora Magazine, you already know what FOSDEM is, but I’ll start with a small intro anyway.

Define FOSDEM

FOSDEM is the biggest event in the known universe for free/libre and open-source developers and enthusiasts.

Many good people from around the world meet and discuss common topics and define the future of F/LOSS. The event is held in Brussels at the beginning of February. Some of us, who are coming from a bit warmer countries, are calling it FrOSDEM, because it’s usually freezing 🙂

Why attend?

If you are a contributor already or you want to start doing good with your skills for the F/LOSS universe, this event is a must. 

I know everyone has their reason for visiting, but I’ll share the most common ones:

  • You meet the people creating and supporting the products that power the Internet that you already use.
  • If you are a contributor already, you have a chance to meet with your team and people using your product.
  • You learn so much new stuff quickly.
  • You enlarge your horizons by looking at something outside your bubble. If you are a fan of Fedora, go and learn more about Security or Javascript.
  • You have a chance to talk to others with the same passion as yours and even become friends for life. A good friend is always a commodity!
  • You achieve your daily steps goal because the ULB campus is enormous, and you will have to move a lot to get to the room you would like to visit.
  • You have a chance to volunteer and help the community if this is what drives you.
  • You attend an event with a great Code of Conduct.

Fedora at FOSDEM 2023

It’s a tradition for the Fedora Project team to be there to present some of our work from the last year and to allow you to share your feedback on what we do well and how we can improve.

Meet, greet, and see our community in action

One of the most extraordinary things at FOSDEM, which I deliberately didn’t mention in the previous section, is the project booths. In almost every building, you will see people behind a branded table, ready to talk to you about their project, its values, and its mission.

People at the Fedora booth looking at something.
Image by Francesco Crippa under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

 I have to mention the goodies here, as well. You will return home with many items from your favorite projects. Be sure to continue supporting them further.  

We at Fedora will be happy to welcome you to our booth as well. You can talk to the community members, give us constructive feedback, and see some of the things we prepared.

Our booth location is in building H, alongside the rest of the Linux Distros.

Map of the ULB campus with a mark of the building H, where the Fedora Project booth will be
Building H, ULB Campus.

Stop by and say hi in your language! We are looking forward to talking to you!

We want to share what makes our work exceptional

At each FOSDEM we have a good number of talks related to what we do at Fedora. I am listing only some of them to make it enjoyable for you to browse the agenda and discover the rest yourself.

1: Fedora CoreOS – Your Next Multiplayer Homelab Distro

Using Fedora CoreOS in a Selfhosted Homelab to setup a Multiplayer Server

Speakers

Akashdeep Dhar
 Objective Lead for Fedora Websites & Apps, Fedora Council
 Software Engineer, Red Hat Community Platform Engineering

Sumantro Mukherjee
 Elected Representative, Fedora Council
 Software Quality Engineer, Red Hat

Intro

Fedora CoreOS is an essential, monolithic, automatically updating operating system optimized for running containers. It focuses on offering the best container host for executing containerized workloads securely and at scale. We will show a case study of setting up Fedora CoreOS as a self-hosted Homelab distribution for globally accessible (using secure network tunneling) multiplayer servers for video games (namely Minecraft, Valheim, etc.).

When and Where

Saturday, Feb-4 at the Containers devroom from 11:30 to 12:00

2: Creative Freedom Summit Retrospective

Speakers

Emma Kidney

Part of Red Hat’s Community Platform Engineering team since 2021. 
Designer at Red Hat’s Community Design Team. 

Jess Chitas 

Part of Red Hat’s Community Platform Engineering team.
Creator of Fedora’s mascot – Colúr, and Fedora Brand Guidelines Booklet.

Intro

The Creative Freedom Summit is a virtual event focused on promoting Open Source tools, spreading knowledge of how to use them, and connecting creatives across the FOSS ecosystem. The summit’s accomplishments and shortcomings will be examined in light of the event’s first year and potential changes for the following years.

When and Where

Sunday, Feb-5 at the Open Source Design Dev Room from 14:30 to 14:55

Where to find more related talks?

Our wiki page is a good start, but FOSDEM’s schedule catalog is even better. One life hack: select a good 30 min slot, go through all the rooms which might get your attention, and create a personal schedule in your favorite calendar app. Make sure you have a backup plan because some rooms might be fully occupied, and you cannot enter.

I want to interest you in a challenge

If you know more than I do about FOSDEM 2023 and have already prepared your schedule, share a single paragraph comment about your FOSDEM plan and list a few of your favorite talks. You will help the community understand the greatness of the event and find more reasons to make the trip to frosty Brussels.

See you there!