Hello all, We are excited to announce that the *Tool the Docs devroom* is back for FOSDEM 2027! The developer room focuses on *free and open source tools for writing, managing, testing, and rendering documentation*. It will run on *Saturday 30th January* for half a day in the afternoon. ## Why present FOSDEM is one of the largest gatherings of Free Software contributors in the world and happens each year in Brussels (Belgium) at the ULB Campus Solbosch. In 2027, it will be held on Saturday, January 30th, and Sunday, January 31st. This year, we are still focusing mostly on tooling, but are also welcoming talks on how the new wave of AI is changing documentation principles and practices. We are inviting proposals for talks on the following subjects: - Tools for writing, plus discussions on the principles and practices of writing for technical audiences. - Tools for managing documentation. - Tools for testing documentation, plus principles and practices for testing. - Tools for automating aspects of documentation. - Tools for rendering and distributing documentation. - AI tools for creating, optimising, and consuming documentation, as long as they are open (https://opensource.org/ai) *We welcome proposals from those working with tools for documentation as well as those creating and maintaining them.* This is a great opportunity to show new ideas and developments to a technical audience from a wide range of free and open-source communities. *Please do keep in mind that product pitches are not allowed at FOSDEM, and anything you show must be in the spirit of open source.* ## How to submit We are accepting talks of 20-30 minutes, with time for questions afterwards. If you want less or more time, please let us know in your submission. Ideally, keep your submissions to one Devroom, or speak with the organisers of those rooms to discuss which is the best fit. All submissions have to be made in the pretalx event planning tool: https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2027/cfp While creating your proposal, please provide the title of your talk, a short abstract (one or two paragraphs), and some information about yourself (name, bio, and photo. Make sure you select "Tool the docs" under the *Track* dropdown. ## Important Dates - Submission open: 27th October 2026 - Submission deadline: 4th December 2026 - Acceptance notifications: 5th December 2026 - Final schedule announcement: 7th December 2026 - Devroom: January 30th 2027 ## Recording Permission The talks in the Tool the Docs developer room will be audio and video recorded and possibly streamed live, too. In the “Submission notes” field, please indicate that you agree to have your presentation recorded and published under the same licence as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY). For example: “If my speech is accepted for FOSDEM, I hereby agree to be recorded and to have recordings–including slides and other presentation-related documents–published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International License. Sincerely, [Name]”. See you at FOSDEM! Chris Chinchilla, Kristof Van Tomme, Erin McKean, Daniel Beck