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FOSDEM 2024 with CentOS Connect

Submitted by Krista Burdine

Fringe Event Details:

  • CentOS Connect: February 1-2, 2024
  • Location: Radisson Hotel, Grand Place Brussels
  • Type: Sponsor, Release Engineering mastermind

Main Event Details:

  • FOSDEM: February 3-4, 2024
  • Location: ULB Solbosch Campus, Brussels, Belgium
  • Type: Stand sponsor, Enterprise Linux hallway

Overview:

First, this event included the CentOS Connect fringe event, which we sponsored. We used a two hour block of time during that event for the Release Engineering team to hold an annual planning meeting for the upcoming year. We also had the chance to mingle with other members of the Enterprise Linux (EL) ecosystem.

FOSDEM is the biggest event the RESF has participated in. The first day’s attendance this year reportedly outpaced attendance from last year’s full two-day event. We gave away hundreds of stickers, a hundred tees to people who engaged with us in conversation, and a dozen mugs to people who were already part of the Rocky community or who joined the Mattermost server at this event.

The Rocky contingent of 9 people was kept busy fielding questions, from which we have developed a new list of FAQs to mull over and propose answers for our website. Wale, Neil, Sherif, Antoine and I did most of the behind table work, with hallway support from Louis and Pablo.

Highlights:

  1. The Release Engineering team used this event as a meetup to solve problems and chart a course for the year. Having so many members of the team together created big energy and
  2. We got to meet many curious and intelligent university students and explain Rocky to them.
  3. Antoine brought several French cheeses, French wine, and artisan bread for an epic meal to celebrate us all coming together.

Outcomes:

Antoine and Pablo proved invaluable for translation services (French and Spanish), due to it being such an international crowd.

Antoine and Wale provided great insight and emphasis on the importance of the documentation arm of the project.

We needed many more stickers, better signage with information to carry away (or QR codes for online), and clear talking points.

Additional Resources:

FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas, and collaborate. Dates for the next event are February 1-2, 2025 in Brussels, Belgium.

CentOS Stream is a continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), positioned as a midstream between Fedora and RHEL. The project is focused around the goal of providing a rich base platform for open source communities to build upon, and we are grateful to be able to support the project as a fellow resident of the EL ecosystem.

Rocky’s Linked In post about CentOS Connect.

The CentOS Project celebrated its 20th birthday at their event, and we were honored to be invited to the party.

Forrest is a brilliant young mind representing our sponsor, CIQ, who spoke for 10 densely packed minutes about Apptainer.

Brian Phan, another articulate representative of CIQ, delivered a community update about Warewulf.

Did we meet you at FOSDEM? Add your name below.

You are invited to share any memories or links to social posts you made about the event.