• 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 TOPICS

• 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!

Head to the FOSDEM 2025 Pretalx website and submit your talks for the CommunityDevRoom.

Submissions are open from October 30th and final submissions are December 1st. 

Talk schedule posted December 15th 

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

Thank you

Laura Czajkowski / Shirley Bailes / Leslie Hawthorn