FOSDEM Day 1 Reflections
The first day of FOSDEM 2026 is over. These are my raw, unedited, reflections as a first-time visitor.
FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.
Okay. The first day of FOSDEM 2026 is done. It was an interesting one. It was a mix of people from all over the world. I heard a lot of Italians, Spaniards, and Brits. People from Red Hat, LibreOffice, SOGo, and many more FOSS companies. It really opened my eyes to the fact that you can run a company without going the traditional route. Dare I say, capitalist route.
It felt like Europe had woken up and realized it's time to get to work. It felt like a lot of the people there today were people holding up the infrastructure of the internet. Really smart people. It made me want to get smarter and contribute to what really matters.
This is not what I'm seeing in Sweden. My feeling when I look around in Stockholm is that people just want to ride the AI hype train and get rich or famous. The traditional "success".
Today, I got the sense that the majority of people at FOSDEM want to push the industry forward. Everything from independence and collaboration, accessibility, performance and innovation.
Before going to FOSDEM, I felt like I was the only one who cared about European independence and FOSS. Maybe it is only me among my peers. But today it became clear that I'm not the only one and that we are in safe hands.
Things will take time. They do. But people are at work. Trust me.
One last note. FOSDEM brings thousands of developers and there are countless talks. I didn't talk to every one of them, and I certainly couldn't attend every talk. But I only heard one speaker mention AI, and it was in passing.
Excited for day 2!