[FOSDEM] [devroom-managers] Call for participation: Network Devroom at FOSDEM 2026

[Alfredo Cardigliano]

We are pleased to announce the Call for Participation for the FOSDEM 2026 Network Devroom

The FOSDEM Network devroom hosts a diversity of talks covering open source networking projects and technologies. The scope of the Network devroom is broad and targets those software developers engaged in network design, monitoring, management and software development with open source tools.

We typically host a variety of talks on networking topics including:

  - Network monitoring (inventory, discovery and telemetry)
  - Network management (enterprise, carrier-grade, cloud, IoT)
  - Networking protocols (the full alphabet soup)
  - Cybersecurity (IPS, IDS, Deep-Packet Inspection)
  - Development tools (libraries, SDKs, plugins)
  - Network stacks

Suggested Topics
================

If it moves network packets, monitors, or interacts with, or supervises entities that move network packets, it is likely a topic the devroom is interested in. A very /non-exhaustive/ list of the projects and topics we would love to see on the schedule are:

  Monitoring and Observability: Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, ntopng, AI-driven analysis
  Programmable Data Planes: XDP/eBPF, DPDK, FD.io/VPP, PF_RING, Snabb, P4, Grout
  Cloud-Native Networking: Cilium, Calico, Istio, Linkerd
  Routing and Switching: FRRouting, BIRD, OVN, Open vSwitch, EVPN, SRv6
  Security and Visibility: Zeek, Suricata, nDPI, Wazuh, CrowdSec, TLS/QUIC visibility
  Scanning and Testing: nmap, zmap, TRex, Scapy, OpenVAS
  Telcos: Magma, free5GC, Nephio, O-RAN, MEC and edge networking
  Tunneling and Security: IPsec, strongSwan, Openswan
  P2P: libp2p, Matrix, IPFS, DHTs
  Tooling: benchmarking, network emulation, CI/CD for networking
  Hardware offloads: Smart NICs, Network processors, SoCs

Talks should be aimed at a technical audience, but should not assume that attendees are already familiar with your project or how it solves a given problem. Talk proposals may cover very specific solutions to a problem, or may be a higher-level project overview for lesser-known projects.

Important Dates
===============

Submission open: 30th October 2025
Submission deadline: 5th December 2025
Acceptance notifications: 12th December 2025
Final schedule announcement: 15th of December 2025
Devroom: 31st of January

Proposals
=========

We invite short (20–25 min) talks, demos, and lightning talks (5–10 min) showcasing open-source tools, frameworks, standards, or community experiences. Hands-on, cross-project, and collaboration-focused proposals are especially encouraged.

To submit a talk, please visit the [FOSDEM 2026 Pretalx website](https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026/cfp).

Please select the "Network" as the *track* and ensure you include all the requested information when submitting a proposal including:
- name
- short bio
- contact info
- title (funny titles are ~~required~~/appreciated)
- abstract (what you're gonna talk about)
- duration


Code of Conduct
===============

We'd like to remind all speakers and attendees that all of the presentations and discussions in our devroom are held under the guidelines set in the CoC and we expect attendees, speakers, and volunteers to follow the CoC at all times.

If you submit a proposal and it is accepted, you will be required to confirm that you accept the FOSDEM CoC. If you have any questions about the CoC or wish to have one of the devroom organisers review your presentation slides or any other content for CoC compliance, please email us and we will do our best to assist you.

[FOSDEM Code of Conduct] https://fosdem.org/2026/practical/conduct/


Contact Us
=========

You can send a mail to network-devroom-manager at fosdem.org

Hope to see you at the Network Devroom!