FOSDEM 2026 EU-Policy Devroom

Call for Participation

As part of FOSDEM 2026, which will take place on the 31 January & 1 February 2026, we will be organising a devroom on Open Source & EU Policy. The devroom will take place on Sunday 1st February 2026 and it will cover the full day. The devroom is organised by APELL, Eclipse Foundation, Linux Foundation, Mozilla, OFE, OpenSSF, and the Open Source Initiative.

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. The day will feature interventions from lawmakers from the European Commission and Parliament, as well as from the community, and will include presentations, workshops, short talks and Q&As.

For those interested, we invite you to submit your proposals for talks by 1st December 2025 at noon CET at the latest. Kindly note that this deadline reflects the FOSDEM organisers’ timeline, so we will be unable to accept any submissions after it. We plan to publish the complete schedule for our developer room by 15 December (or earlier). 

We are looking for proposals to talk about:

  • Open Source & Digital Sovereignty, in particular:
    • How Open Source can enable Digital Sovereignty
    • Funding and procurement of Open Source software
    • Policies promoting Public Sector Open Source software
    • Examples of migration to Open Source
    • The EU’s Cloud and AI Development Act
    • The development of Open Source AI.
    • The importance of Open Source sustainability for Digital Sovereignty
    • Institutional open source strategies, such as the European Commission’s Open Source Strategy or national/regional plans
    • 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 do we build a European Open Source industrial strategy 
    • How do we remove existing barriers for Open Source uptake in the EU
  • Open Source & Digital Policy, in particular:
    • The status and impact of EU laws, other than the CRA
    • Tools built for and around EU laws, other than the CRA
    • Upcoming policy initiatives from the EU
    • The implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act
    • The implementation of the Product Liability Directive
    • The implementation of the Data Act
    • The implementation of the Digital Markets Act
    • The revision and Implementation of the Chips Act
    • The implementation of the Interoperable Europe Act
    • Digital Networks Act
    • Cybersecurity Act
    • Ideas and input towards the Public Procurement Directive from an open source perspective
  • Open Source & Democracy, in particular:
    • The involvement of the Open Source Community in policymaking
    • Relations between the Open Source community and the European Institutions
    • EU laws that impact Democracy and Open Source
    • The intersection between Open Source and Democracy
    • Open Source tools for participation and Democracy.
  • CRA & Standardisation, in particular:
    • Implementation of the CRA;
    • CRA security attestation programmes for FOSS;
    • CRA and FOSS sustainability;
    • The Standards around the CRA and their status;
    • The process of standardisation in Europe.
    • Reform of the European standards sector (Regulation 1025/2012);
    • Interplay between CRA and other legislation;

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 30th, 2025. 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 2026 Pretalx website, select Open Source & EU Policy 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 2025: Submissions Open
  • 1st December 2025 (noon CET): Submission deadline
  • 12th December 2025: Final confirmation deadline
  • 15th December 2025: Final schedule announcement
  • 1st February 2026: Devroom

CONTACTS

To reach the devroom managers please use Pretalx or e-mail eu-policy-devroom-manager@fosdem.org

Please do not submit your proposals to the contact address. Remember to use the Pretalx system. This CfP is also available here.