Call for Participation

As part of FOSDEM 2025, which will take place on the 1st and 2nd of February 2025, we will be organising a devroom on Open Source In The European Legislative Landscape and Beyond. The devroom will take place on Sunday 2nd February 2025 for the full day.

The devroom will continue the tradition started at FOSDEM 2024, bringing together developers and EU lawmakers from the European institutions to discuss the impact of past, ongoing, and upcoming EU laws affecting the Open Source community. Once again we plan to run this in a non-traditional way, as a series of collaborations or workshops featuring a scene-setting presentation, short talks from developers to set context, engagement from institutional representatives and then audience participation. Accepted talks will be deployed in this framework, and not as a free-standing session. We acknowledge as complementary the DevRooms with overlapping topics and hope to find ways to collaborate!

For those interested, we invite you to submit your proposals for talks by 1st December 2024 at 11:59 CET at the latest. Please note that this deadline is managed by the FOSDEM team, and outside of our control, meaning that submissions beyond that deadline cannot be accepted.

We are looking for proposals to talk about:

• The EU’s ongoing and upcoming legislative work where it affects Open Source, in particular:
  • The implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act
  • The implementation of the Cyber Resilience Act
  • The implementation of the Data Act
  • The implementation of the Digital Markets Act
  • The Implementation of the Chips Act
  • The implementation of the Interoperable Europe Act
• Standardisation with Open Source in mind
  • In the implementation of legislation
  • Reform of the European standards sector (Regulation 1025/2012)
  • Standard-essential patents Regulation
• Relations between the Open Source community and the European Institutions
• Funding and procurement of Open Source software
• Policies promoting Public Sector Open Source software:
  • Policies around Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs)
  • Policies for collaboration projects such as OpenDesk/La Suite Numerique
  • Policies to build open source projects for governments and administrations (e.g. eID, eSignature, Digital Wallet, etc.)
  • Policies for international collaboration on Open Source
  • Interoperability of digital public services
  • Policies on technological sovereignty
• How can we increase the EU’s technological sovereignty, competitiveness, and resilience through Open Source
  • How do we increase Open Source uptake and awareness by companies
  • How do we build a European Open Source Industrial strategy
  • How do we remove existing barriers for Open Source uptake in the EU

One of the goals of the DevRoom is to bring together legislators and affected citizens and organisations. We are particularly looking to hear from:

• OSS project managers and committers;
• OSPO team members;
• Open Source micro-enterprises and SMEs;
• Product security managers and cybersecurity team members;
• Open Source standards professionals;
• Open Source foundations (e.g. compliance officers, cyber team members etc.);
• Private sector and civil society government affairs staff;
• Public sector, public policy staff (civil servants, MEP assistants etc.)

Talks must be submitted through the FOSDEM Pretalx system and will be open for applications starting from October the 30th, 2024. Please keep in mind that you may be invited to talk in a different format or duration to the one you initially propose, at the discretion of the organisers. Keep in mind that all talks will be streamed and recorded, so by applying, you give permission to be filmed as part of the event.

To submit a talk, go to the FOSDEM 2025 Pretalx website, select Open Source In The European Legislative Landscape and Beyond as the track, and remember to include all the information requested when submitting your proposal, including a title, short abstract (a few paragraphs), as well as some information about yourself (name, bio, photo).

Following the closure of the call on the 1st December, we will evaluate the proposals for talks and prepare a draft program. We will notify you as rapidly as possible of your acceptance in early December, with a final deadline for you to confirm attendance if accepted on the 12th December, and the publication of the finalised schedule by the 15th December.

We look forward to your proposals!

DATE RECAP:

30th October 2024: Submissions Open
1st December 2024 (11:59 CET): Submission deadline
12th December 2024: Final confirmation deadline
15th December 2024: Final schedule announcement
2nd February 2025: Devroom

CONTACTS

To reach the devroom managers please e-mail eu-policy-devroom-manager@fosdem.org which comprises:
Axel THÉVENET, Open Forum Europe
Enzo RIBAGNAC, Eclipse Foundation
Sebastian RAIBLE, APELL – The European Open Source Software Business Association
Simon PHIPPS, Open Source Initiative
Jordan MARIS, Open Source Initiative
Gijs HILLENIUS, European Commission Open Source Programme Office
Benjamin BÖGEL, European Commission

Please do not submit your proposals to the contact address. Remember to use the Pretalx system.