# FOSDEM 2024 - European Policy devroom info and Call for Participation ## Overview [FOSDEM] is one of the world's premier meetings of free software developers, with thousands of people attending each year. FOSDEM 2024 will take place on the weekend of 3-4 February 2024 in-person in Brussels. It is the perfect place for a meeting with policy makers whose work will affect free and open source software development! This is the Call for Participation (CfP) in the "Open Source in the European Legislative Landscape" (EU Policy) Devroom at FOSDEM 2024. This unique DevRoom seeks to bring developers and policy makers together to shape future work in Europe. ## Details The EU Policy Devroom will take place for a full day (09:00-17:00), on Sunday 4 February 2024, and will be an in-person event in a room to be announced later. Open source software is the power-house of technology innovation in Europe. The EU Policy Devroom at FOSDEM is an informal, in-person event oriented to authors, users, and enthusiasts of FLOSS programs that are created in the European Union. It will also feature the policy experts from the European Institutions who are creating and refining the laws of Europe that affect open source software development. The goal of the devroom is for FOSS Community Members and European policy makers to meet and understand each other so as to ensure future legislation does no harm to the valuable open source sector, and ideally advances the development and use of open source. **We are looking for participants!** ## Call for participation This devroom is not like others! It is to develop future EU policy, not open source code! We seek to stimulate a genuine and open discussion that will become the fuel for good legislation in the future. We are building workshops where accepted participants will be grouped together with EU policy experts for a journey from the current state to a future state in each topic area. We aim to produce a report in each policy area arising from each workshop. An indicative, non-exclusive, list of workshop topics is: - **Responsibility and liability**: How do recent instruments such as the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and Product Liability Directive Revision affect you, your project and your future. - **Open Source in the Public Sector**: The Interoperable Europe Act creates new opportunities for Union-wide interoperable systems. How would your project be affected by it? How should member states deliver on their duties under it? What would future versions of the Act look like? - **Open Source as the Solution To Policy Problems**: The Data Act and Digital Markets Act create obligations for so-called "gatekeepers". Is open source the right implementation enforcement solution? Your project may have solutions relating to online app stores, messaging systems, identity validation - bring your experiences. - **Supporting Open Source**: While the European Union has made great strides such as forming an EU OSPO, other recent instruments have not promoted open source innovation. How should future policies be designed to promote innovation through adoption and use of open source? What projects and initiatives could you bring to the discussion? The final list of workshop topics will be built from the submissions for participation that we receive both from developers. We will invite policy experts to join based on the submissions we receive so workshop tracks will also depend on their acceptance. ### Key dates * 8 December 2023: Submission deadline at 23:59 in your time zone. * 19 December 2023: Announcement of devroom schedule * 22 December 2023: Selected participants notified (or before) * 4 February 2024: EU Policy devroom in FOSDEM (You must be available in person to participate!) ### Submission process Please use the [Pretalx] system to submit a participation proposal for the devroom. Remember to select "Open Source in the European Legislative Landscape" for the "Track" pop-up selection! ### Submission guidelines The proposal submission system will ask for all the information, in a succession of three screens. Note that this year FOSDEM is using a new submission system, Pretalx. User accounts from the old system (Pentabarf) are not valid, so you will need to create a new account. We will be looking for relevance to the conference and devroom themes, but essentially any relevant experiences with a *bona fide* connection to the Devroom topic will be considered. Please note that you will most probably *not* be giving a full presentation; rather the room managers will place you as a co-participant in a given workshop. So explain what you would like to propose to the European institutions along with why you think you are the person to make the proposal, not the details of a talk. Feel free to indicate in the "Submission Notes" area any factors you would like considered beyond the core content you are proposing, but please note that the final decision on workshops will be made by the devroom managers based on the accepted proposals. We will contact you before the schedule is published to ensure you are comfortable with the allocations we make Please note FOSDEM aims to record and live-stream all talks. The CC-BY license is used for the recordings. ## Volunteers needed To make the devroom run successfully, we are looking for volunteers. If you will be attending the devroom and would like to help, please reach out to the organizers, especially if you have the necessary experience to be a rapporteur for a workshop! ## Spread the word and discuss If you know of any mailing lists or other online venues where this info and CfP would be relevant, please feel free to forward this document. ## Contact The organizers of the devroom can be reached by sending email to eu-policy-devroom-manager@fosdem.org. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any inquiry or suggestion for the devroom. The initial Devroom managers are: - Simon Phipps, OSI - Enzo Ribagnac, Eclipse although we expect this list to grow. [FOSDEM]: https://fosdem.org [Pretalx]: https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2024/cfp