Last weekend I was on FOSDEM for the first time. Although I haven’t seen a single talk it was very interesting and a lot of fun, because it felt like the ‘cool’ version of CeBIT.
FOSDEM booth - I'm the person on the left 😉
As far as I can say this year’s FOSDEM booth was a big success. We sold lots of T-Shirts with the new designs and colours and rumour has it that there will even be new womens’ T-Shirts soon (I will fight for the longsleeves ;-)). We also introduced our cute and funny Valentine’s Day Chocolate Hearts saying “I love Free Software, but I love you more.” that can be ordered now. I had a look at the drafts of our Valentine’s Day logo and it was very pink.
Additionally, we have won several new Fellows – even one from Greece!
On Monday before FOSDEM I talked to José Marchesi of GNUpdf who told me Richard M. Stallman would come to Frankfurt/Germany in the beginning of March. So we started thinking about a speech by RMS. On FOSDEM-Sunday we even dared to make first plans for possible locations for such a speech. In case we can talk RMS into giving a speech during the time he will be in Frankfurt we will have a Fellowship Event there, too. But don’t worry, we will announce it before!
Then I would like to have some critical discussion after his speech e.g. about what happens to the work for Free Software when he passes on the torch. And I wonder if in his opinion there is already someone who to carry it. I think it will be interesting to hear his prediction about the coming development of Free Software and how it matches or collides with the European view.
I really hope it works and that we will have lots of convergent and divergent opinions in the discussion!