FOSDEM 2025 – Community Devroom Call for Participation!

Key dates + Guidelines

• Conference dates 1-2 February, 2025
• Community Devroom date: TBC
• Submissions open October 30th
• Submission deadline: December 1st
• Announcement of selected talks: December 15
• You must be available in person to present your talk
• Speaking slots are 25 minutes in length (to include any Q&A)
• The Community devroom is unable to sponsor people to attend

In more Detail

The Community DevRoom will be back at FOSDEM 2025. Our goals in running this DevRoom are to:

• Educate those who are primarily software developers on community-oriented topics that are vital in the process of software development, e.g. effective collaboration.
• Provide concrete advice on dealing with squishy human problems.
• Unpack preconceived ideas of what community is and the role it plays in human society, free software, and a corporate-dominated world today.
• Explore ways we can make open source software sustainable for maintainers and contributors.
• Share knowledge on all aspects of creating and nurturing communities for free software projects.

Talk Suggestions

Here are some topics we are interested in hearing more about this year:

• Creating a community around a corporate-sponsored open source project that is respectful of its users and FOSS principles.
• Self-care in our communities, for both community members and community leaders, e.g. how are we all dealing with burnout, the impact of rising geopolitical instability’s impact on our members, and layoffs throughout the tech industry.
• Balancing community expectations with company objectives in a manner that is respectful and authentic, and serves both audiences well.
• Community management best practices.
• How to effectively manage toxic community members from ruining your welcoming community so that others stick around!
• Tell us about successful ways that you have created to reward volunteer contributors, keep volunteers motivated, and encourage others to get more involved.
• Creating communities and authentic and sustainable connections with contributors who are only able to engage with online activities such as virtual office hours or event livestreams.
• Effective collaboration techniques.
• Recruiting new people to your project.
• Creative ways to engage and grow your developer community.
• How to improve engagement within your communities to maximise awareness of your project.

Again, these are just suggestions. We welcome proposals on any aspect of community building!

Submitting your talk
Head to the FOSDEM 2025 Pretalx website.
If you already have an account, please DO NOT create a new one.
If you forgot your password, reset it.
Otherwise, follow the instructions to create an account.
Once logged in, select “Create Event” and click on “Show All” in the top right corner to display the full form.

Your submission must include the following information:

• First and last name / Nickname (optional)/ Image
• Email address
• Title and subtitle of your talk (please be descriptive, as titles will be listed with ~500 from other projects)
• Track: Select “Community DevRoom” as the track
• Event type: Lecture (talk)
• Persons: Add yourself as the speaker with your bio
• Description: Abstract (required)/ Full Description (optional)
• Links to related websites / blogs etc.

Beyond giving us the above, let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to share as part of your submission – Twitter handle, GitHub activity history – whatever works for you. We especially welcome videos of you speaking elsewhere, or even just a list of talks you have done previously. First time speakers are, of course, welcome!

If you need to get in touch with the organisers or program committee of the Community Devroom, email us at community-devroom@lists.fosdem.org

Shirley Bailes, Laura Czajkowski, Leslie Hawthorn, and – Community DevRoom Co-Organizers