FOSDEM 2026, Call for Participation

Events
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The CfP has been issued! FOSDEM 2026 - FOSDEM 2026 Call for Participation

I am creating a thread quickly to track our submission and submission message :slight_smile:

Best regards and talk to you soon,
Fer

IMPORTANT EDIT: if you would like to participate as a co-organiser, please, please, please, let us know ASAP!!!

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And today the Call for Stands is up.

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FYI, I am going to try to write the proposal tomorrow.

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Feel free to post the draft to the AdaFOSDEM mailing list for review and comments.

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Dear all,

here is a draft for the submission. Please, read it and give any feedback that you may like Ada :: FOSDEM 2026 Call for devrooms :: pretalx

Best regards,
Fer

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Dear all,

the proposal to have an Ada Devroom for FOSDEM 2026 has not been accepted. We will look now into getting a stand, just like a few years ago. Though I dont have high hopes with this as last couple of years the competition has been great for the available spots.

Nevertheless, there are some other accepted DevRooms that could accept Ada related topics. A few of those examples are:

  • Browser and web platform devroom: someone could showcase fully verified Ada/SPARK code running on the browser using WASM.
  • Security Devroom: self explanatory
  • GCC (GNU Toolchain): self explanatory
  • LLVM: GNAT-LLVM frontend anybody??
  • Embedded, Mobile and Automotive: someone could talk about the guide released by NVIDIA on how to get SIL-4 certified using Ada/SPARK and present the language.
  • Software Performance: Ada has some unique properties when it comes to performance, maybe you would like to showcase those? (To be honest I have had an idea about this for soooo long…)
  • Confidential Computing devroom
  • Microkernel and Component-Based OS

Additionally, FOSDEM has indicated that they have given preference to rooms that were shared and not about a single topic, which does not bode well for Ada… They have also given more prominence to larger format talks, so this has also had an impact on the number of accepted DevRooms…

Talk to you,
Fer

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Very unfortunate, but indeed, the competition for DevRooms was fierce.

The FOSDEM team wrote among others:

“Note we received far more proposals (137) than we can accommodate, so unfortunately we had to leave out a number of good proposals, including from some teams who had a well organized devroom in one of the previous editions. Note that this only means we skip those rooms this year, and we will definitely schedule some of them again in a next edition.”

So, we shouldn’t despair for the future, with 12 well organized Ada DevRooms in previous editions.

They also mentioned:

“Compared to previous editions, we have chosen to avoid most devrooms that were about a single project.”

Note: they did not say they avoided DevRooms “about a single *topic*” but “about a single *project*”. I don’t interpret that as not boding well for Ada, quite to the contrary, as the program of our DevRooms has never been about a single project, but the available time was always shared over various different projects (and even different topics as well one might say).

Anyway, no Ada DevRoom at FOSDEM 2026…

Let’s hope we manage to get an Ada stand, though there as well there will be much competition for the available slots.

As Fer wrote there are several other DevRooms where Ada related topics would fit well. Please consider submitting there. And if your proposal is accepted, please keep us all informed, and we’ll maintain a list of Ada-related presentations at FOSDEM 2026…

Dirk

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I noticed there were only three language specific devrooms this year: Go, Python, and Rust. The dozen+ that were available last year are gone too.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to move away from specific language oriented rooms in the long term

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FYI, our proposal for an Ada-related stand was submitted before the deadline last Sunday evening. Fingers crossed…

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Hi all!

this is a reminder to everybody to check out other devrooms and see if any Ada/SPARK can be presented there! The Call for Proposals for the devrooms can be found here: FOSDEM 2026 - Accepted developer rooms

Best regards,
Fer

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Perhaps they will oscillate, like one year more languages, one year more OSes, etc.

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  • Software Performance: Ada has some unique properties when it comes to performance, maybe you would like to showcase those? (To be honest I have had an idea about this for soooo long…)

    Hi, will you be able to present with respect to the above, or can you point to where I can read about Ada’s unique performance?

    Cheers!

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Dear all,

Bad news: our proposal for an Ada stand at FOSDEM 2026 has not been accepted… :frowning:

The FOSDEM Stand Team wrote:

We are sorry to tell you that we cannot accept your proposal “Learn & Make with Ada” as a FOSDEM stand. There were a lot of good proposals (212), and only a limited number of stands.

You can still apply to do a talk in one of the accepted devrooms, lightning talk or a BOF. You can find more information at FOSDEM 2026 :: pretalx or https://fosdem.org/

As suggested in the 2nd paragraph above and stated in Fer’s reminder yesterday, check out other devrooms and see if any Ada/SPARK can be presented there! [1]

The other two options to get Ada content at FOSDEM 2026 are [2]:

  • The lightning talk is a very popular format, used at many conferences, where speakers have a mere 15 minutes at their disposal to showcase an open source project, an idea, or a concept thereof.
  • BOF stands for Birds Of a Feather who, as the saying goes, flock together. FOSDEM has three meeting rooms that may be booked in 30 or 60 minute blocks for discussions. All the meetings are public so anyone who is interested can attend if there is enough space.

We are interested in your feedback, and especially your proposals!

Dirk

[1] FOSDEM 2026 - Accepted developer rooms
[2] FOSDEM 2026 - Schedule

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Sounds like they need a new venue with more space.

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AFAIK, yes, but that is not so easy… From what I have heard, FOSDEM is now the largest open source conference in the world… There are not that many venues that can handle such volume of people… and less so being free!

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Yes! I would like to make a video of this! I will make a post once I will get around doing it.

Also, welcome to the community!

Best regards,
Fer

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Hi Pal,

Cheers! And I will keep a look out for it.

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Has anybody submitted a talk or presentation? I was thinking that maybe I could present the work of GNAT-LLVM in the LLVM devroom.

Cheers,
Fer

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