[FOSDEM] FOSDEM 2024 - European Policy devroom info and Call for Participation

[Simon Phipps]

# 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 at 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
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