The call for proposals has now closed! please wait until mid December to see the final talks selected! Thank you to everyone who submitted :))))

FOSDEM is the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting, a free and non-commercial two-day weekend event that offers all open source contributors a place to meet, share ideas, learn and collaborate. Every year, thousands of free and open source software contributors from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels, Belgium. After the success of FOSDEM 2024, we are gearing up for the next edition of FOSDEM, taking place at the UniversitĂ© Libre Brussels on 1st and 2nd of February 2025.

Open Source Design @ FOSDEM

Open Source Design has been part of FOSDEM for close to a decade now, giving designers who work with free, libre and open source software a platform to share their ideas. Much like the previous years, Open Source Design will have a devroom at FOSDEM 2025 for the afternoon of Sunday the 2nd of February, and this year it will on the second half of the second day of FOSDEM (13:00pm CET). It will be an in-person event, with a livestream online for the folks who are unable to make it in person.

Get involved!

We invite you to give a talk about contributing design to open source projects!

“Design” can mean anything including typography, graphic design, interaction design, user experience, human-computer interaction, accessibility, information architecture, content strategy, service design, user research, design research and more. You don’t have to be an expert in the field – you could have been involved in a project for as little as a year or as long as a decade. As long as you have been involved with design in any respect in an open source project, we’re interested to hear what you think!

Here are some topics that may inspire your talk:

  • Your experiences contributing to design in an open source project

  • How you use FLOSS tools to design

  • An open source project which is an example of great design

  • Your design process, research methods, and go-to resources while working with open source projects

  • Your ideas on fostering diversity and inclusion in design and open source

  • Anything else related to design and FLOSS!

Thunderbird: Why Visual Change Is Good by Alessandro Castellani at FOSDEM 2024

Reimagining Personal Computing with E ink: Community Insights and Design Challenges by Alexander Soto at FOSDEM 2024

Liquid Prompt: yes, we can drastically rethink the design of a shell prompt by nojhan at FOSDEM 2024

Bad UX is Bad Security: Adventures in Qubes OS UX Design by Marta Marczykowska-GĂłrecka at FOSDEM 2024

Web-accessibility for open-source privacy & security tools by Raashi Saxena at FOSDEM 2024

Penpot 2.0 is here! by Pablo Ruiz-MĂșzquiz at FOSDEM 2024

Accessibility & Open Source: How open source is key to building a more inclusive world by Mike Gifford at FOSDEM 2023

Documenting a Design System: Lessons learned from open sourcing the Orbit docs by Aaron Collier at FOSDEM 2022

Open Source Design movement in Africa by Peace Ojemeh at FOSDEM 2020

What is the talk format?

This year, all talks at the Open Source Design devroom will be in-person and recorded/streamed. You will have the stage for 25 minutes in total, so you can have a 20-minute talk with 5 minutes for questions from the audience, or a 25-minute talk with no questions. Talks cannot be longer than 25 mins otherwise you get gently moved off ‘stage’.

How can I submit a talk?

Link to submit a talk Submissions open on the 30th of October and run until 30th of November 2024.

Talk submissions will be sent directly to FOSDEM’s Pretalx system. Submissions for talks must select ‘Open Source Design’ under ‘Track’.

There the Open Source Design Core Maintainer team will review talks and accept and reject. We should have space for around 6 talks in the afternoon.

What’s the deadline?

Submission of talks must be done by the end of day 30th of November 2024

Accepted talks would be announced latest in December 2024.

All deadlines are 23:59 UTC. If your talk is accepted, an Open Source Design volunteer will keep in touch with you to help you meet deadlines and with any technical difficulties you may face.

Additional information

The Open Source Design devroom at FOSDEM 2025 will be at the Solbosch campus of the Université Libre Brussels, Belgium, the room is k3201 with a capcity of 80 people. Those who want to watch remotely will be able to attend virtually.

Be sure to read the FOSDEM Code of Conduct.

If you have any questions, reach out to us on the Open Source Design forum.

We are looking forward to seeing you at FOSDEM 2025!

Date & Location

  • Date: 1st February 2025
  • Time: 13:00 CET
  • Location: UniversitĂ© Libre Brussels, Belgium