[HN Gopher] FOSDEM 2024: my experience, some notes and tech tips
___________________________________________________________________
FOSDEM 2024: my experience, some notes and tech tips
Author : hddherman
Score : 225 points
Date : 2024-02-12 06:32 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ounapuu.ee)
(TXT) w3m dump (ounapuu.ee)
| BaudouinVH wrote:
| I live in Brussels. I can only agree about the trash pick-up. The
| biking situation has vastly improved in the last years but is
| still far from perfect. You can reach FOSDEM using a tram or -
| not mentioned in the article - by bus 71 (busiest public
| transport line in Brussels, expect some company).
| pantalaimon wrote:
| I found the trick was to take the metro line 5 to Delta and
| then take Bus 71 from there, much less crowded - I could get a
| seat every day.
| kaladin_1 wrote:
| Nice overview! You successfully ignited the desire to attend one
| in me.
| eniac111 wrote:
| Hi from the Video team 8-)
| dale_glass wrote:
| Good work! I remember that when I first started attending many
| things weren't recorded. Now I think everything is complete,
| which is a huge boon with the amount of interesting talks I
| can't make it to.
| zoobab wrote:
| Back at fosdem 2002, I remember taking old pentiums boxes and
| putting a firewire DV card in there, and sending the raw DV
| frames over the network to another central box.
| saghul wrote:
| I've been going to FOSDEM since 2011 and you folks impress me
| every year! Outstanding work!
| ahartmetz wrote:
| IIRC, video often had trouble like incomprehensible audio due
| to way too quiet or overdriven recording at the time (i.e.
| 2011). But for some years now, it has usually been perfect
| indeed :)
| secure wrote:
| The 3? (4?) video recordings I watched from FOSDEM 2024 all
| had bad audio :( sounded overdriven to me
| zoobab wrote:
| "Brussels is allegedly very nice, however I'm not a big fan of
| the way trash is handled"
|
| Politicians also invented orange bags, full of smelly compost.
| Hopefully FOSDEM is not organized in August.
|
| The HSBXL party was the last one (la "der des der"), they gonna
| destroy the building. They ran out of beers at midnight,
| organizors had to rush to the nearby pakistanis shop to buy the
| stock of beers :-)
| dtx1 wrote:
| Two Times in a row i got home from fosdem absolutely sick. It's
| always cold, rainy, the campus is an order of magnitude to small
| for the amount of people in attendance and the lecture rooms
| windows aren't opened long enough to deal with all the People
| Smells that accumulate. If you go there, were a Mask at all times
| and desinfect your hands frequently or you will end up sick. Oh,
| and drinks are cheapest from the vending machines because they
| are from the university, not from the commercial vendors.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I've been on a sickness streak for a large part of the last
| year - and for a change I was fine after this event :)
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| Yep, just got mine sinking in after a week. In retrospect,
| going to a nearly 10k attendee event without a mask was not a
| smart idea...
| stef25 wrote:
| Cold & rain doesn't cause illness, def too many people :)
| mattbee wrote:
| My first too; I enjoyed it but if I wasn't meeting up with old
| friends, I wouldn't have bothered.
|
| Coming from the UK, the city trash and cycling standards seem
| fine :) There is a darned hill in the way of everything in
| Brussels, but I brought my bike helmet and buzzed around on hire
| scooters.
|
| I agree with another poster here, the ventilation in some rooms
| will just be intolerable for some people. Sometimes windows are
| opened and you can sit near them, sometimes not. Quite often you
| will have walked across campus and squeezed onto the floor at the
| back of a busy room to sweat, straining to hear someone mumble.
|
| The atmosphere around the grubby 60s uni & grey weather is non-
| existent. But the live streaming is apparently excellent. You
| don't need to travel to see the talks, and it's easier to quit
| out of a bad one :)
|
| It's a logistical marvel in some ways, but also a total white
| boys club, the most homogeneous conference I've ever been to.
| elric wrote:
| > but also a total white boys club, the most homogeneous
| conference I've ever been to
|
| Is it? It's one of the most trans-inclusive conferences I've
| been to. There's a lot more women at recent editions as well. I
| suspect the audience was a reasonably fair representation of
| the IT crowd in Belgium and surrounding countries. There's
| something to be said for the lack of diversity in IT in
| Belgium, but you can't really blame FOSDEM for that.
| catwell wrote:
| It depends a lot on the rooms you go too as well, it's a
| reflection of the various communities (in Europe mostly,
| although quite a few people come from overseas too).
| radicalbyte wrote:
| He must have been somewhere else. Saw and spoke to plenty of
| non-CIS-males in and around K (where the big cantine is with
| coffee). A majority looked white/male of course but that is a
| function of the industry and demographics of Western Europe.
|
| It's by far the most diverse conference I've been to.. but
| I've only been the Microsoft events and CES where the most
| diverse you got was being a white CIS dude wearing jeans
| instead of a suit.
| dale_glass wrote:
| > My first too; I enjoyed it but if I wasn't meeting up with
| old friends, I wouldn't have bothered.
|
| It gets better on repeat visits. The first one is daunting,
| it's a very busy conference with lots of running around and
| often not making it into a full room.
|
| Once you figure out what's where and the general flow of the
| place it's a much smoother experience.
|
| My current strategy is to mostly ignore the big keynotes. You
| can always watch the video afterwards. To me the most important
| things are the talks where I expect to have questions to ask,
| and the stands. If you can't ask a question after the talk you
| can often still talk to the speaker in the hallway.
|
| With a bit of practice and a plan you can have very cool
| conversations with some very interesting people, and sometimes
| people organize an after-FOSDEM dinner or similar type event.
| cbeach wrote:
| > a total white boys club, the most homogeneous conference I've
| ever been to.
|
| Sorry you feel that way.
|
| Personally, diversity of people's thought interests me more
| than diversity of their superficial birth characteristics.
|
| I recall meeting great people and talking about all manner of
| things when I last attended FOSDEM.
|
| Maybe next time try interacting more - learning about people's
| character and experience - rather than judging those people on
| their skin colour at first glance?
| bowsamic wrote:
| There's no way you've been here for 12 years and think this
| comment is appropriate for this forum
| jldugger wrote:
| The amount of video that comes out of FOSDEM is amazing. The
| schedule says there's like 800 events, over the course of two
| days. One has time to sample perhaps 5 percent of the talks, so I
| don't feel _too_ bad about never attending.
| elric wrote:
| My biggest gripe with FOSDEM has been the same for over 20 years:
| the doors to devrooms should remain firmly closed during a talk.
| It's so annoying (and disrespectful) when people come and go
| during talks. The seats and tables are all very noisy, the
| accoustics tend to be poor. The best way to attend dev room talks
| is by watching the videos. Sigh. I wish people would just be
| polite enough to wait outside when a talk is already in progress.
| Or at least bother to enter quietly.
|
| The criticism of Brussels is warranted. There is a serious lack
| of public toilets in Belgium in general, but it's worse in
| Brussels due to the population density and prevalence of poverty.
| The trash situation is something I've been meaning to write an
| essay on, but two words to sum it up: political incompetence.
| hddherman wrote:
| For what it's worth, I got politely turned away at the
| PostgreSQL devroom doors when I was about 10 minutes late to a
| session. Perhaps this is not something that got passed along to
| all volunteers.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Could have been because the room was full. That's AFAIK the
| only reason why lecture hall doors are closed at FOSDEM. At
| least Postgres has a room of more or less appropriate size
| lately. A couple of years ago, they had some of the most
| interesting talks in one of the smallest rooms. Impossible to
| get in without queueing up a talk or two in advance.
| sakjur wrote:
| IIRC it's left to the devroom organizer to keep the doors
| closed for entering during a talk.
| dale_glass wrote:
| It's in good part because the conference is at its limits.
|
| Scheduling is uneven. Talk A ends at 10:50, talk B starts at
| 10:45. Also getting from the H building to K takes a good
| while, and interesting talks tend to get full which is an extra
| reason to try to be early.
|
| Unfortunately it's not a really solvable problem short of maybe
| making the conference a day longer.
| ghaff wrote:
| I haven't been for a while but latterly I came to the
| conclusion that you picked a devroom for a day/half-day that
| you were interested in the talks/people and hung there. Or
| you spend the half-day networking/socializing. It's mostly an
| exercise in frustration to flit from room to room for
| specific talks.
| awaythrow999 wrote:
| > The trash situation is something I've been meaning to write
| an essay on,
|
| Did a quick search because I recall an old article by The
| Economist dating to between 2000-2005 already complaining of
| people in suites leaving their dogs to shit on the sidewalks
| without concern. I sadly can't find it but there is plenty of
| content that teils me things haven't changed.
| bboreham wrote:
| My biggest gripe at FOSDEM is the folks who strike up a
| conversation while seated in the room, during a talk.
|
| To be fair this happens at KubeCon too.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I haven't been to FOSDEM, but at any other conference I'd
| turn to them and "sssh!"
|
| It is generally understood.
| solarkraft wrote:
| To me this FOSDEM (my first one) was nice, but nowhere near the
| level of spectacle I'm used to from Chaos Events (I didn't expect
| it, but maybe a bit more would've been nice). It felt a bit dull
| - mostly people wandering around in narrow hallways, with talks
| hidden away in small rooms. There weren't many fun gizmos or nice
| places to make the experience ... comfortable. Every once in a
| while someone would play on the piano, which was nice.
|
| Of course the people were great. Lots of nice conversations to be
| had. This is why I'll probably return for the next one.
|
| A lot of the fun I had happened during Byte Night, where, during
| a break from partying, I stumbled upon a buch of people doing a
| Typescript CTF, which evolved into quite a few nice
| conversations.
|
| I was pretty tired on day 2.
| juliangmp wrote:
| Was my first FOSDEM too and I'm definetly planning to attend next
| year as well! One thing I didn't like was how crowded some of the
| rooms were. I wanted to watch some talks in the rust devroom but
| it was so crowded I pretty much gave up watching the talks live
| and spent my time behind the codeberg stand. Luckily theres
| recordings of the talks online ^^
| mid-kid wrote:
| If you're room hopping you're essentially going to have to give
| up on entering some rooms at all. Some people have the strategy
| of sitting in a less crowded room and then switching to a
| stream from a crowded room whenever they feel like, but the
| success of that kind of depends on the infrastructure.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| It needs a new venue. My first FOSDEM was immediately before
| COIVD-19 broke out and it was the last time I travelled for 2
| years straight. If someone would have had COVID at that
| conference probably lots of OSS devs would have died.
|
| FOSDEM doesn't fit in its venue anymore, which is great in a
| way. It's been incredibly successful, but now it's time to find
| a bigger venue.
| atq2119 wrote:
| Perhaps. But then again, its reason for success and its charm
| comes from being given access to the University for free
| because it's being run by a university-associated team.
| Messing with that would almost certainly destroy the
| character of the conference.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, it sort of is what it is both in terms of venue size
| and time of year. At the end of the day you find an
| attendance strategy that works best for you and work around
| the worst of the crowding. (Or just watch some videos.)
|
| Personally, it's quite a bit less tempting to attend than
| it was when there were a number of more-or-less time
| adjacent European events I had some interest in.
| EdiX wrote:
| > FOSDEM doesn't fit in its venue anymore, which is great in
| a way. It's been incredibly successful, but now it's time to
| find a bigger venue.
|
| The ULB campus is pretty big, finding a bigger venue is going
| to be complicated.
| eniac111 wrote:
| Exactly. There are almost 30 rooms with live talks. Only
| universities might fit an event from this size.
| jen20 wrote:
| I wonder if Brussels Expo might. Perhaps the EU might
| help offset the cost (I assume the university is free to
| use).
| zoobab wrote:
| Compared to CCC, i miss night sessions and hacking tables.
| s3krit wrote:
| I got FOSDEM flu from FOSDEM 2020 and sometimes wondered if
| it was COVID-19. Absolutely horrendous flu, and a few of my
| friends also got it. This was obviously pre all the testing
| that would become commonplace in the coming months. Who
| knows.
| cube2222 wrote:
| Was on FOSDEM first time this year, working the OpenTofu booth,
| and it was great fun!
|
| I was surprised how big the conference is, and how diverse the
| attendees were, and it was great to meet and talk to maintainers
| of many pervasive open-source projects.
|
| It was also nice to hear so many people tell us they've already
| moved to OpenTofu :)
| nickstinemates wrote:
| FOSDEM is amazing for hanging out with old friends and the vibe
| is excellent. Lots of conversations to be had.
|
| FOSDEM is not a place to hack on new ideas with people or to
| learn by watching talks. That's best left for the streams.
|
| Overall the main benefit is networking and beer.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Went for the second time this year (after being invited by an OSS
| hero friend I made during COVID) and took my oldest (10) along.
|
| Whilst last year was spent mainly on coffee, drinks and food with
| friends this year I basically spent the entire weekend with my
| son in the kids workshop. He loved it and I really enjoyed seeing
| him interested in coding.
|
| Also spoke to lots of very nice and very diverse people; that
| whole "strike up a conversation with strangers" thing is what I
| love about FOSDEM and it's why we'll be back again next year.
| Everyone is welcome, most of us aren't there to flog something
| but to have nice chats and maybe catch a session or two.
|
| Thanks to all of the organisers!
|
| Maybe we should have a #hn community place or meet there next
| year? :-)
| 616c wrote:
| This is truly inspiring, thanks for sharing your experiences.
| stef25 wrote:
| TIL there's a kids workshop! As from what age do you think it's
| interesting for them ?
| radicalbyte wrote:
| We spent the weekend here basically:
| https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/room/j1106/
|
| * Microblocks: https://microblocks.fun/
|
| * MIT App Inventor: https://appinventor.mit.edu/
|
| * Hedy: https://www.hedycode.com/
|
| Hedy in particular was extremely good: it teaches kids to
| code in text in Python, building up from what looks like
| natural text into real code. The session was given by a
| primary school teacher (who was Dutch, which helped as my lad
| is Dutch/British and that's his first language).
|
| She had excellent results with dyslexic kids, it turns out
| the black/white nature of code combined with the detail
| really helps them. Materially improves spelling.
|
| Age? My son is 10 but there were younger kids there. My
| daughter is 7 and my son taught her how to use Scratch when
| he got home. So she's old enough. Although she is bright
| (skipped a year at school and the work she is doing is two
| years ahead of that).
| noobermin wrote:
| So i have a strange request. I'm a computational scientist but
| I've always wanted to attend fosdem as some of the tools we use
| are open source. For those a little outside of computer science
| proper or tech in general, what do you use to justify to funding
| agencies or the like (advisor) to attend fosdem if you do?
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Well train tickets back and forth were ~100EUR in total and an
| AirBnB for two nights was also ~100EUR, so I just paid for it
| myself.
|
| The conference itself is free (as in Beer).
| dale_glass wrote:
| I'd argue that it's very useful for making contacts.
|
| The talks are online, but FOSDEM is full of interesting people.
| Some of those people aren't very available online. Some you
| don't even know they exist. Some organize an after-FOSDEM
| dinner like the Perl people do. You can ask around questions
| like "Is anyone from X here?" and probably get a positive
| answer even if they don't have anything in the schedule.
|
| FOSDEM also has BOF (Birds of a Feather, basically a bunch of
| people in a room having a chat about something) that can be set
| up on an improvised manner. And of course you can just agree to
| eat or drink something with them.
|
| So it can be extremely useful to attend in person especially if
| you come with a plan.
|
| I've gone to dinner with people, had a KDE member help debug
| stuff on my laptop, and done experimentation on Open Source VR
| with another project's members, for instance.
|
| That can be extremely useful, and for the price of travel and
| hotel (FOSDEM itself is free), that's an extremely good deal.
| jmmv wrote:
| Neat and really, really comprehensive article. Now I miss not
| having attended.
|
| I attended for the first (and only so far) time back in 2020,
| right before COVID, and took some notes as well
| (https://jmmv.dev/2020/02/fosdem-navigation-101.html). A lot of
| the advice I wrote matches what the author shares here, so I'd
| say the article resonated with me :)
|
| Definitely a fun place to attend. If you do open source once in a
| while, it's invigorating to visit!
| floor_ wrote:
| RIP n-gate's commentary.
| stef25 wrote:
| Lived in Brussels my whole life, some general thoughts
|
| - Yes the trash situation is bad. It _is_ actually due to
| political infighting. As you may know Brussels has 19 communes,
| 19 mayors, a whole lot of pencil pushers and 4 differently
| colored trash bags that each have their own pickup day, so this
| leads to some ridiculous situations.
|
| - There's much better bars or introductions to beer than
| Delirium, which is basically for tourists (as are those meters of
| beer on a plank). There's Moeder Lambik in 2 locations, a whole
| bunch of bars around Place Flagey and about another dozen at the
| Parvis of St Gilles.
|
| - Public transport tends to suck unless you're lucky with the
| stops / lines and the rental bikes / scooters are the best way to
| get around. That, or walking. It's a pretty small city.
|
| - The city is safe, just be careful around the Gare du Midi esp
| at night, and pick pockets exist almost everywhere. Don't lose
| sight of your valuables.
|
| - Belgians are discreet and modest, almost too much. Any lack of
| enthusiasm and fireworks is for this reason :)
|
| - Winter is drab around here. Humid, gray, cold.
| ghaff wrote:
| Second Moeder Lambik. Went to the pre-FOSDEM party at Delirium
| once. Never again.
|
| And though I've taken the bus from near the Place Royale to the
| university for FOSDEM, it's very walkable.
| ebiester wrote:
| So, I get that beer samplers are "for tourists," but it is also
| hard to try a wide variety of beers when on a relatively short
| trip without them. Also, as someone who also lives in a tourist
| town, it is much better to herd them all together. Ironically,
| they end up having more fun because the locals are there to
| interact with each other, and the tourists are much more likely
| to inter-mingle.
|
| This is counter to their stated preference, but the actions end
| up revealing themselves.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > Also, as someone who also lives in a tourist town, it is
| much better to herd them all together. Ironically, they end
| up having more fun because the locals are there to interact
| with each other, and the tourists are much more likely to
| inter-mingle.
|
| Reminds me of Temple Bar in Dublin. Anyone from Dublin will
| always advise you to avoid the place as it is full of
| overpriced tourist traps, but tourists consistently go there
| and any I've spoken to always report having a great time.
| Leave them to it I guess!
| thecosmicfrog wrote:
| I tell Dublin tourists they should definitely check out
| Temple Bar for one night. It's loud, has dozens of pubs and
| restaurants, is packed with people, and is just generally
| good craic[1]. I don't go there myself all too often, but
| it's not like I don't go to Times Square at least once when
| I visit NYC. I think we forget sometimes that the average
| tourist is on holiday and pretty happy to just switch off
| and go with the flow.
|
| [1] https://www.ceastudyabroad.com/blog/content-
| creator/2017/12/...
| fvdessen wrote:
| FYI Moeder Lambic is now as touristic as Delirium since every
| beer nerd tells people at Delirium to go there instead ...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| The thing about Delirium is that it's where the (unofficial)
| FOSDEM Beer Event happens1, so that's where you meet all the
| other FOSDEM people.
|
| [1] there used to be an official FOSDEM beer event there before
| COVID, but people just still go there.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _- Public transport tends to suck unless you 're lucky with the
| stops / lines and the rental bikes / scooters are the best way
| to get around. That, or walking. It's a pretty small city._
|
| I found public transport in Brussels pretty decent. Especially
| the MOBIB card system just works. This is completely different
| where I live in Germany.
|
| I only had difficulties on the day of my arrival on Thursday
| because of the farmers protests and that is where an E-Scooter
| saved me. That you can just pick up a scooter even when you
| signed up in a different country is fantastic.
|
| Apart from that, I have the hunch that Germany is the only
| remaining country where people pay cash. That you can pay
| everything with your card is quite convenient.
| teekert wrote:
| The subway was pretty good indeed, combine with some walking
| and it gets you many places. I for one wasn't brave enough
| for the scooters...
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I do not understand the attitude of being location tracked
| plus details of your transactions, stored by corporations, is
| "convenient"
| cedws wrote:
| I was surprised how brazen the pickpockets are. One of them
| approached me at a station (not Gare du Midi) being friendly. I
| reciprocated having had a few beers at this point. The next
| moment I feel his hand in my pocket trying to fish my wallet
| out. Luckily he ran off as soon as I noticed, he wasn't a
| particularly good pickpocket.
|
| Maybe it only happened because I looked strongly tourist.
| Thieves and pickpockets are more quick and sly in London.
| Frankly, every visit I have always felt a bit unsafe in
| Brussels. Someone I met at FOSDEM last year had their car
| window smashed in.
| throw156754228 wrote:
| Sounds a lot like London.
| chx wrote:
| Extremely, extremely bitter note: how much all the
| diversity&inclusion is all talk and no show was on clear display
| when FOSDEM didn't have a mask mandate.
| swed420 wrote:
| Definitely concerning to see how many have given up on avoiding
| a virus whose reinfections continue to disable and kill daily.
|
| Seems like boozing takes precedence over all else at this
| event.
|
| Edit for the unaware: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/germany-
| entered-a-recession-l...
| chx wrote:
| The Gauntlet readers unite!
| samatman wrote:
| COVID will be around for the rest of my life.
|
| I could choose to spend my remaining years wearing a mask, or
| choose to accept the risk. Those are the options. I choose
| the latter.
| swed420 wrote:
| If you personally are well informed on the extent of the
| risks of endless reinfections, then you're in a minority
| but I agree that ought to be your choice to make, ideally.
|
| But most people don't even know that N95s offer excellent
| personal protection, and most people are surprised when
| they see how long the list of interconnected risks is.
|
| COVID-19 and Immune Dysregulation
| https://whn.global/scientific/covid19-immune-dysregulation/
|
| COVID Effects on the Brain
| https://whn.global/scientific/covid-effects-on-the-brain-
| a-s...
|
| Sadly, capital doesn't want people informed because that's
| bad for our archaic consumption-first economy, so
| capitalist media reports accordingly.
| raybb wrote:
| Your post inspired me to finally write about my FOSDEM experience
| this year. In summary, it was a little hard connecting to people
| without already knowing someone there but I still had a nice time
| in general and learned about some nice stuff like Open Food
| Facts, PassBolt, and Vale.sh. Looking forward to going again next
| year. If I'm lucky maybe even give a talk about something, I've
| really been enjoying coolify this year and maybe the creator
| would welcome a guest speaker sharing it :)
|
| https://blog.rayberger.org/fosdem-2024
| dale_glass wrote:
| Nice, but that blog software is obnoxious.
|
| Who ever thought that while reading the first post on the site
| and not yet done, I'd actually appreciate being scrolled back
| to the top, and getting a popup asking to subscribe to a
| newsletter?
|
| Even if I wanted to, I'd refuse out of principle.
| summm wrote:
| This! And, the RSS feed isn't referenced in the header, so my
| reader wouldn't automatically recognize it. At least the icon
| is clearly visible.
| raybb wrote:
| I also messaged support about this. Hopefully they address
| it.
|
| Thanks for pointing it out.
| raybb wrote:
| wow that popup in the middle of the article and scrolling is
| obnoxious. I have never seen it since it doesn't show it to
| me when logged in.
|
| I poked around and it doesn't appear I can disable that popup
| without disabling the whole newsletter feature. I don't care
| so much about people subscribing but my less techy friends
| seem to like the newsletter mode.
|
| I messaged the hashnode.com support to ask about this. Other
| than that I've been pretty happy with them given that I don't
| want to selfhost my blog right now.
|
| Anyway, thanks for letting me know.
| Diris wrote:
| FOSDEM was my first conference, and I'm glad I attended. I wish I
| had talked with more people and better planned my day, but
| there's always next year!
| ari18 wrote:
| H
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