Embedded & Resource-Constrained OS devroom, FOSDEM 2027Sunday, January 31st 2027, 09:00-12:45, ULB, Brussels
Open source operating systems run a huge share of the embedded devices
around us, from wearables and IoT sensors to industrial controllers,
robots, and satellites. The Embedded & Resource-Constrained OS devroom
at FOSDEM is a dedicated space for developers, maintainers,
researchers, and users of these OSes (Zephyr, RIOT, Ariel OS, Apache
NuttX, Tock, Embassy, RTEMS, ThreadX, and many more) to discuss how we
build, test, secure, and maintain them, and how we can share more
across projects.
Topics
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Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
* Kernel design, scheduling, power management
* Sharing software components across OSes (drivers, network stacks,
settings storage, ...)
* Cross-compiling, simulation, and CI with real hardware in the loop
(testing drivers, timing-sensitive code, board farms, ...)
* Living with vendor SDKs: stale compilers, diverging forks (mbedTLS,
wpa_supplicant, MicroPython, ...), and getting changes accepted
upstream
* Designing and maintaining open reference hardware
* Bootloaders, secure and measured boot, TEEs, and keeping devices
open to repurposing
* Safety and security
* Community governance
* Cool real-world projects and applications
Talks, technical deep dives, demos, and work-in-progress are all
welcome. Talks about a single project are welcome, as long as they
bring lessons, tools, or open questions that other communities can
benefit from. The morning will (tentatively) end with a roundtable
on how our communities can work together.
The Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom (Saturday) covers embedded
systems more broadly, including Linux-based ones. This devroom focuses
on the OS layer of microcontroller-class and resource-constrained
devices. If your talk fits both, submit it to one only; organisers of
both rooms talk to each other and may suggest a move.
Formats
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We expect to schedule around 5 talks and 4 lightning talks, followed
by the roundtable.
* Talk: up to 25 min, including Q&A
* Lightning talk: 10 min, great for a quick demo, a work-in-progress
update, or maybe your first FOSDEM talk :)
The pretalx form only offers 25 or 50 minutes. Pick 25 for both
formats, and for a lightning talk write "Lightning talk (10 min)" at
the top of the Submission Notes. Please don't pick 50.
We may shorten some talks to fit the schedule and will tell you so when
your talk is accepted. First-time speakers are very welcome; reach out
if you want help shaping a proposal!
How to submit a proposal
------------------------
(create a new account if needed; old Pentabarf accounts were not
migrated)
* Track: "Embedded & Resource-Constrained OS"
* Title and a short synopsis (a couple of paragraphs), with links to
the projects you mention
* Speaker name(s), affiliation(s), a short bio, and a photo (in your
pretalx profile)
* Co-speakers: add them in the form, they need their own pretalx
account
* License: the main license(s) of the project(s) your talk is about
Talks are given in person in Brussels. All talks are live-streamed and
recorded, and the recordings are published under CC-BY.
Important dates
---------------
* Submission deadline: Monday, November 23rd 2026, 23:59 UTC
* Notification: Tuesday, December 1st 2026
* Schedule published: Monday, December 7th 2026
Organisers
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* Emmanuel Baccelli (Ariel OS)
* Benjamin Cabé (Zephyr)
* Oleg Hahm (RIOT)
* Alin Jerpelea (Apache NuttX)
* Orson Pessin (Tock)
* Susan Remmert (Zephyr)
Links
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See you in Brussels!