[FOSDEM] CfP Safety and Open Source devroom

[Shaun Mooney]

# FOSDEM 2022 (Online) - Safety and Open Source Call for Participation

## The Dev Room

The Safety and Open Source Software devroom will be running for its 
second year at FOSDEM. The room is dedicated to everything relating to 
using Open Source Software for safety critical applications. The 
advantages of Free and Open Source Software are numerous. More than ever 
companies choose to use FOSS in their projects,

However, the world of safety is behind the curve. Software developed for 
safety-critical applications typically employs traditional development 
practices that, although well-used, are increasingly outdated, and the 
code is often closed source. This is because safety standards are 
stringent, and safety applications must have rigorous quality assurance 
practices applied during development.

This dev room is looking for talks that can help to showcase how we can 
use FOSS in safety-critical applications, including overcoming 
obstacles, legal issues for industry and contributors, 
compliance-related concerns, and how to advance state-of-the-art safety 
practices to allow industry to benefit from the many advantages that 
FOSS provides.

## Talks

We recommend about 45 minutes, including discussion for talks, although 
variations will be considered (please include the talk length in your 
submission).

Example topics include (but are not limited to):

* Pros and cons of using Open Source software in safety-critical 
applications
* Examples of Open Source Software being used in safety-critical 
applications today
* Legal and moral implications for contributors who have their code used 
in safety-critical applications
* Safety analysis techniques for complex software systems
* Requirements elicitation, and verification and validation techniques 
(including creating argumentation to prove that software can be 
certified to safety standards)
* What we need to do as FOSS creators to shift the industry mentality 
around the use of FOSS vs. current safety standards
* Discussions of specific safety standards and how this might affect 
FOSS creation
* Open Source Development practices and how we can map these to 
practices such as the V-model which are needed for current industry 
safety standards (e.g. IEC 61508, ISO 26262 etc.)

## For accepted talks

* Presentations have to be pre-recorded and streamed before the event.
* Once your talk is accepted, we will assign you a deputy to help you to 
produce the pre-recorded content.
* The deputy will review the content and ensure it has the required 
quality. They are also responsible for ensuring that the content is 
ready to broadcast on the day.
* During the stream of your talk, you must be available online for the 
Q/A session.

## Submit a talk

Visit the [FOSDEM 2022 Pentabarf 
website](https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM22), and if you don't 
have one already create an account.

Create an "event" and click on "Show all" in the top right corner to 
display the full form.

Your submission must include the following information:

* Your contact Email
* The title and subtitle of your talk (please be descriptive, as titles 
will be listed with ~500 from other projects)
* Select "Safety and Open Source" as the track.
* A short abstract of one paragraph
* A longer description if you wish to do so
* Links to related websites / blogs etc.

## About FOSDEM

FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and 
collaborate.

* FOSDEM is free to attend. There is no registration.
* FOSDEM [website](https://fosdem.org/2022/)
* FOSDEM [code of conduct](https://fosdem.org/2022/practical/conduct/)

## Key dates

* Submission deadline: 30/12/2021
* Safety and Open Source devroom date: Saturday 5th February 2022

## Contact

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us:

   * Shaun Mooney: shaun.mooney at codethink.co.uk
   * Nicole Mpofu: nicole.mpofu at codethink.co.uk