Our Visit to FOSDEM 2025
25 years of promoting free & open source software 🎉
This year marks the 25th anniversary of FOSDEM, a two-day event organised by volunteers for the promotion of free and open source software, in Brussels (Belgium). It’s a one-of-a-kind get together in Europe. It started in 2000 by Raphael Bauduin, a fan of the Linux movement in Belgium, who decided to organise a small meeting for developers of Open Source software. He called it ‘Open Source Developers’ European Meeting’ (OSDEM).
Visitors gravitate towards it from across the world. It’s free and is organised by the community for the community (we love 🙌). There are developer rooms (devrooms) where teams can meet, collaborate and showcase their projects in “real life”.
The goal is to provide free and open source software developers and communities a place to meet to:
- get in touch with other developers and projects;
- be informed about the latest developments in the free software world;
- be informed about the latest developments in the open source world;
- attend interesting talks and presentations on various topics by project leaders and committers;
- to promote the development and benefits of free software and open source solutions.
The FOSDEM team have done an incredible job to orchestrate this edition’s 1193 speakers, 1104 events, and 79 tracks in 35 rooms on the ULB campus (Université Libre de Bruxelles).
Open Food Facts goes to Fosdem 🍊
This year, Open Food Facts had a stand. With the help of our wonderful contributors, Alex F., April (our local ambassador in Belgium) & Ben, we shared our passion for the project with hundreds of people !
As a recently recognised Digital Public Good, we also got the opportunity to present in the huge Janson auditorium, during the keynote “Scaling Open-Source Solutions to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals: A Global Call to Action”. Pierre shared about our project and how it aims to achieve some of the SDGs. You can watch his presentation here (at 36.48 min): https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5687-scaling-open-source-solutions-to-achieve-the-sustainable-development-goals-a-global-call-to-action/
We also had a swell time connecting with people at some post-event get-togethers by Public Digital Goods Alliance, GSOC (Google Summer of Code) (we may or may not have improvised a beer Scan Party at the Brewdog…) and xwiki.
Let’s hear it from our community
Alex F. 🗣️ (on the left in the photo, with Alex G.)
It’s a pleasure to meet people of so many different nationalities who share this desire to eat well 🙂
It was quite funny to see the gap between the French, who are all familiar with the project, and the other countries where there is still a lot to do.
The exchanges are always interesting, because Open Food Facts echoes in two ways with the FOSDEM participants:
On a personal level, they always think of their family members (or even themselves) who have food restrictions to keep in mind, and how difficult it is to decipher the packaging.
The curiosity aspect that reawakens when faced with the mass of data. Everyone has different questions: Can we see the evolution of products? Are there differences between countries?
And, of course, the special case of re-users who drop in to say hello, whether they’ve launched an app or used the data for a student project, it’s always nice to see the people behind the projects (on both sides).
Alex G. 🗣️
I was thrilled to attend this big event. It’s amazing to see all those passionate people with a wide range of projects, from robotics, windmill or mobile OS to legal defense of Open Source. A lot of people were happy to learn about Open Food Facts. You can see how every argument about privacy, sharing the database or advancing science immediately strikes a chord. I have often tried to learn about people I talk to, and it was always interesting.
Gala 🗣️
I’ve heard about FOSDEM, but it’s the first time I come here and it’s so much bigger than I imagined !
The organisation is impressive, with various events hosted in several buildings of the campus. It was energising to meet so many visitors at our stand, because most of them seemed really drawn to the project, its mission & approach ! Food is a very uniting factor.
It was also nice to see more of Brussels in the evenings. I am looking forward to returning to FOSDEM. And if you would like to help us at our stand next time we are there, we’d love to have you !
Pierre 🗣️
At FOSDEM, you can see the beating heart of the European Open Source and Open Data community. Despite speaking at FOSDEM on the progress of Open Food Facts for many years, it’s the first time Open Food Facts had a presentation stand, and it gave us the opportunity to reach and interact with open source advocates and developers from across Europe. We also had the opportunity to scan the many customary beers present during the events, and even improvise a mini price party. Finally, we were formally introduced as a “Digital public good” during the DPG Panel, alongside Wikipedia, the Tor Project, Chamilo.
