FOSDEM 2025 Wrap Up
13.02.2025 12:00 — FOSDEM — ThibThe Matrix.org Foundation and its growing community were once again present at the biggest OSS conference in Europe, and it's been a tremendous success! It was an opportunity for us to gather, share ideas and debate about ongoing topics, meet the broader FOSS community and present our work.
🔗Fringe Event
With 8000 visitors, FOSDEM is primarily a place to share your work with others and present the latest developments to those interested. But it's not necessarily the best venue for conversations within the community about topics that are still in-flight.
Because so many people are doing the trip to gather in a single city, it remains a good opportunity to gather your own community in a more intimate setting. This is precisely what Fringe Events happening before or after FOSDEM are about.
Group photo of the people attending the fringe event
Workadventure, Nordeck and Famedly generously sponsored the 60 pizzas and €1500 worth of drinks at the event to keep us refreshed and fed! Our deepest gratitude to them and the Brussels Hackerspace HSBXL for giving us a place to gather.
Recording of the barcamp session
The barcamp / unconference format we adopted allowed participants to mention what they were interested in talking or hearing about, with the help of Yan Minagawa who is a fantastic event facilitator!
Some people were comfortable getting their talk recorded, but some were not. You can find the full list of talk recordings in our Fringe Event YouTube playlist.
🔗Booth
The Matrix booth was located in the realtime communications corner, next to the XMPP and Linphone friends who have been lovely neighbors. Shout out to the XMPP gang in particular for setting up the Realtime Comms Lounge with bean bags that must have been a logistical nightmare to bring to FOSDEM!
The booth was very crowded, we got plenty of enthusiastic visitors telling us what they love about Matrix, with occasional minor support requests. People have been overwhelmingly supportive and curious about the future of Matrix.
The Matrix.org Booth at Fosdem 2025
We gave away 100 T-shirts in less than a day, asking people for a donation to the Foundation in exchange for the T-shirt. If you didn't already, you can make a donation today!
This year the booth has been opened up to the broader ecosystem and volunteers, and that was a significant success. Many thanks to the whole roster: Dominik, Milton, Sumner, td, Nico, Kim, weeman, Nadine, Timo, Anoa, Greg, Bram, Robin T, stereo, BenP, Will, Neil, Florian and everyone who showed up at the booth to support the crew!
A special thought to MatMaul, Robin and Hans v. Zijst who volunteered but fell sick and took the right decision not to spread germs. You were missed, but you did the right thing.
🔗Main Track Talk
Matthew had a Main Track Talk in Janson "The Road to Mainstream Matrix" in which he covers the history of Matrix, why things are what they are today, how the vendors' strategy support Matrix' mission, and what's coming next.
Give it a watch if you want to learn more about the new State Resolution algorithm, MLS, Post Quantum Matrix, the future of the matrix-rust-sdk and what this means for the matrix-js-sdk, Trust & Safety.
🔗Matrix Devroom
Right after Matthew's talk we had the Matrix.org Foundation & Community Devroom. The full schedule is available on FOSDEM's website.
The talks covered a variety of topics ranging from technical issues to community ones. If you want to learn more about the state of Synapse, how federation works, using the rust sdk with WASM or even why the Ubuntu community is switching to Matrix, head to the schedule or to our YouTube Playlist with all the talks.
You can find all the videos
- Directly on FOSDEM's website
- Or on our YouTube Channel: Devroom Playlist, FOSDEM 2025 Playlist
Thanks to all speakers and Yan Minagawa again for MCing the devroom!
🔗Community & Ecosystem
If you're an individual and you can afford it, please support the Foundation or become a member so we can keep organizing these events and spread the word about your favorite sovereign, decentralized and E2EE communications protocol.
If you're an organization and you rely on Matrix one way or another, please become an organizational member to ensure the Foundation can keep maintaining an unencumbered specification, protect the Matrix brand and community, and contribute to the efficiency of the protocol.
Finally, if you missed us at FOSDEM, make sure to follow us on our socials to be informed of the next events we will organize or attend! Follow us either on the fediverse, on LinkedIn, on Bluesky or even on the most decentralized of all, by subscribing to our RSS feed.
