Matrix.org - FOSDEM

FOSDEM 2026 Wrap Up

2026-02-06T12:30:00+00:00

What a year again at FOSDEM! The community met at our Hackathon on Friday and worked on fancy ideas. We talked to thousands of people at our booth, and hosted the Decentralised Communication Devroom on Sunday. But Matrix was truly everywhere at FOSDEM.

🔗</a>Hackathon</h2>
We started right before FOSDEM with a Hackathon on Friday, 30th of January. About a hundred people joined us with ideas of projects to hack on, or problems to discuss. After spending the first hour listing the topics or projects people were interested in, we formed groups.

We spent the day hacking and talking, took a short pizza break for lunch thanks to Famedly’s sponsorship, and went back to work. At the end of the day people presented the result of what they had been working on. Among others, people worked on:

Nexus</a>, a brand new flutter client from the community</li>
An IKEA-style assembly instructions to join a MatrixRTC call</li>
Encrypted Search in Element X Android (still in progress)</li>
Contributions to the sticker and emoji MSC</a></li>
A bot that takes images posted in a specific room and prints them on a receipt printer</a></li>
The Matrix Conference 2026 website</a> and Call for Proposals</a> launch</li>
But also discussions about MSC4256</a>, the MLS mode for Matrix</li> </ul>
You can watch the recording of our live stream</a> to catch up with all the ideas people had! Some projects succeeded, some projects didn’t, but we’re happy about the outcome: in all cases people tried to create something new or to contribute to an existing project. In each instance, participants learned along the way, which was the primary goal of the hackathon.
Additionally, an attendee raised an important point. They said: “I came with questions, I expected to meet factions who want to solve the problem differently, but we could talk the problem through and make progress”. This is a real testament to the utility of such events, and we can only encourage more organizations to join the Foundation so we can make even more of these.
After the presentations, we had a chill out evening with dinner sponsored by Element, with Spezi and other drinks sponsored by Famedly. Everyone had earned their one-time edition Matrix Cap!

We want to thank Element</a> and Famedly</a> again for sponsoring the event and giving us the opportunity to meet in person, and the local hackerspace HSBXL</a> for hosting us once again.
🔗</a>Booth</h2>
The next morning, on Saturday, 31st January, FOSDEM</a> itself started. Our booth team was quickly ready to welcome visitors… and we had several thousands of them over the weekend!

This could be because we gave away more than 100 T-shirts and a handful of caps, or this could be because people wanted to try the famous Swedish liquorice sweets that our community member Magnus brought, like every year!
We also had cool demos on the stand. Dominik and Kim have set up an air-gapped deployment of Matrix to showcase the various clients and administration tools. Christian and Florian used the hackathon time to set up a demo with a receipt ticket printer that would print whatever you send in a specific room, and one with an e-ink screen that would display whatever you sent in the same room.
Overall, the discussions with attendees were overwhelmingly positive. Most of them were about how Matrix is useful to people, expressing that our work matters and that the software has come a long way. We're moved by all this gratitude and are pleased to see that people believe that the ecosystem is going in a good direction.

Our gratitude goes to Dominik Rimpf who set up the infrastructure for volunteers to take shifts, and who helped us set up the demo at the booth, but also to Kim for setting up the demo on the laptops we had with us, as well as the rest of the Events Working Group</a> for helping with the organisation of the event. We also want to thank Element who donated the three laptops we used to the Foundation, so that we can have a “Booth Box” ready to follow us everywhere we go.
Finally, a big shout out to all the volunteers who helped us staffing the booth and answering the attendance's questions: Mikhail, Oleg, kitsune, Bruno, weeman, anoa, Nico, td, Mithgarthsormr, stereo, Dave, Denise, Pierre, Jade, Guillaume, Milton, Tom, Hans, Sergey, QuadRadical, and Kai.
🔗</a>Devroom</h2>
On Sunday, 1st February, we still had our booth, but we also coordinated the Decentralised Communication devroom</a> next door. It was a full day devroom between 9am and 5pm. Traditionally Sunday morning is the slowest moment of FOSDEM, but the devroom filled up very quickly. By 10am every seat was taken and we had to start refusing people.

We received representatives from ROOST</a>, Draupnir</a> and our own Trust & Safety team</a> to discuss how to keep people safe in decentralised environments.

On the Matrix side, we gave our famous State of the Union</a>. Element explained how making Element Web more modular</a> would help make it snappier. Neil also talked about the problem of becoming sustainable when you give away software for free</a>. Finally, their VoIP team showed a fun demo of a Godot game using MatrixRTC</a> behind the scenes for the multiplayer mode.

The devroom also welcomed our friends from the XMPP, DASL, ATProto and ActivityPub / Bonfire communities.
🔗</a>FOSDEM Online</h2>
Not only did we have a Hackathon, a booth, and contributions to a devroom: Matrix was also everywhere at FOSDEM. Indeed, FOSDEM has an online side. Element hosted the infrastructure and configured and monitored the rooms, widgets, and bots that run the online side of FOSDEM.
In terms of numbers:
attendees.fosdem.org</a> has 57,332 users, including 796 new users since last year</li>
There were 929 members in the FOSDEM 2026 space.</li>
People exchanged ~538 messages/hr at the peak on Saturday at ~10:30</li>
People exchanged 17,000 messages total</li> </ul>
We’re incredibly proud that the FOSDEM team renewed their trust in us, and that Matrix was a satisfying experience for the largest open source experience in Europe.
🔗</a>Elsewhere at FOSDEM</h2>
Finally, Matrix was also on the lips of many, regularly cited as an example of what to do. For example, in The Hidden Layer: Bringing Protocol Governance into Digital Policy</a>, Matrix was presented as an example of good governance.

The Foundation’s legal Data Protection Officer (DPO) monitors the evolution of the legal landscape, and shared her insights in her talk Digital Omnibus: is the EU's tech simplification a Risk or Opportunity for Open Source?</a>.

In the talk From Policy To Practice; Open Source in The Dutch Government</a>, the Dutch government explained why they used OpenDesk, which includes Element, and why it makes sense for them to fund their upstreams more.
Both ZenDis and DINUM are using Matrix. They also both sent representatives in the Open Source & EU Policy Track</a>, for example in this panel: Public Procurement for Digital Sovereignty</a>.
In Linux on the Desktop – Why Digital Sovereignty Starts Here</a>, the speaker highlighted Matrix as the solution of choice for sovereign chat.

In his talk In Defense Of GnuPG</a>, Özcan Oğuz pointed out that Matrix was the simple solution that Just Works™ to get secure conversations online.

Finally, Matrix community member Jade also gave a talk about the Continuwuity homeserver software in Signed, Sealed, Stolen: How We Patched Critical Vulnerabilities Under Fire</a>.
🔗</a>Where to Find Us Next</h2>
FOSDEM is an important milestone for the Matrix ecosystem, and we’re proud of how successful it has been for us this year again. But FOSDEM is not the only conference we attend. Our next major milestone is The Matrix Conference 2026</a>, and this year we will meet in Malmö, in Sweden, in October!
We’re thrilled to launch our Call for Proposals</a> and encourage you to submit yours early on. We want to strike a good balance in talks between organisational and community talks - the Conference is for the whole ecosystem! Attendees should get a good idea of where Matrix is today, but we are always excited to go wild about what Matrix could be in the future.
We’re grateful to the prospective sponsors who have already reached out to us to manifest their interest in supporting the Conference! You are the ones who enable such events. With your help, the Matrix ecosystem can gather, exchange ideas, show prototypes, and converge on solutions that benefit all. If you’re interested in sponsoring too, please reach out to conference@foundation.matrix.org</a> while we put the final touches on our sponsorship brochure.
In the meantime, our community is organising or attending other events. You can catch up with what they're about on their website</a>.

FOSDEM Update

2025-12-19T15:30:00+00:00

As we've previously announced</a>, we are organising a Matrix Hackathon before FOSDEM and co-organising the Decentralised Communication Devroom, and we will have a Booth. We have updates for you! 
🔗</a>Devroom line-up</h2>
We finalised and published the schedule of the Devroom. We're pleased to announce that the devroom will feature talks about Trust & Safety in the context of decentralised systems, Matrix, XMPP, ActivityPub, AT, DASL, KERI, and even a talk about how to onboard more people. When combing the proposals, we tried to get as many relevant technologies covered as possible.
You can find the Devroom schedule</a> on FOSDEM's website.
🕐️ Sunday, 1st February, 09:00 - 17:00 CET (local time)
🏢 Room aw1126
🔗</a>Hackathon</h2>
We're organising a hackathon on Friday, 30 January, at HSBXL. It is a collaborative hackathon where everyone can come hack on what they want. Don't be afraid to come: we already have experienced community members who signed up and who are keen on mentoring newcomers!
The following topics are covered by mentors who already signed up and volunteered to help steer others in the right direction:

Synapse</a>: Mathieu, Olivier</li>
Rust apps: Mathieu</li>
Trust & Safety, Draupnir</a>: Gnuxie</li>
Trust & Safety, Mjolnir</a>, Policyserv</a>: Travis</li>
Element Web</a>: Dave, Florian</li>
MatrixRTC: Timo, td, Valere</li>
Encryption: Valere, Hubert</li>
Matrix-Auth-Service</a>: Quentin</li>
Nheko</a>: Nico</li>
Widgets, NeoBoard</a>: Milton</li>
Website</a>, Python bots, MDAD</a>: Kim</li> </ul>
If you want to mentor or hack on another topic you're of course also welcome to the hackathon.
The schedule is the following:

09:00 - Welcome, brainstorming on project ideas</li>
10:00 - Teams are formed and start working on their project</li>
12:00 - Lunch delivery</li>
17:00 - End of the project phase. Groups present what they did or couldn't do</li>
18:00 - Evening Lounge</li>
19:30 - Dinner delivery</li>
21:30 - End of the Evening Lounge</li> </ul>
Between 09:00 and 17:00 we will keep the space focused on the hackathon, with a backstory to galvanise contributors! After 17:00 the hacking phase of the hackathon will be over, and everyone will be welcome to attend and join us for the evening even without a registration.
🕐️ Friday, 30th January, 09:00 - 17:00 CET (local time)
🏢 HSBXL</a>, Rue Osseghem 53, 1080 Molenbeek
🎫 Free registration here</a>

🔗</a>Booth</h2>
This year again we will have a booth for both days at the event. We're looking for volunteers to join the team staffing the booth. Sign up early and you'll get one of the 2026 volunteer limited edition T-shirts!
You can pick a shift on our shifts management platform</a> and we will invite you in the private Matrix room to manage the booth.

Find us at FOSDEM

2025-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

You might have seen our earlier post</a> about the Decentralised Communication Devroom we are coordinating. This is one of the exciting ways to come talk to us, but it's not the only one!
This year we're organising a hackathon before FOSDEM, we'll have a booth during FOSDEM itself, and we're coordinating the Decentralised Communication devroom! 
🔗</a>Friday, 30th January - Community Hackathon & Lounge Evening</h2>
Would it be FOSDEM if it didn't start with our traditional Matrix Community Event on Friday? This time, we will be organizing a collaborative hackathon for the full day, starting at 9:00 CET. Don't be late: we'll use the first hour to select tasks and form teams!

The Matrix ecosystem is all about lifting everyone through federation and interoperability. That's why in this hackathon for the Community, we will not compete for the best project, but we will have a joint mission: The Matrix Federation is endangered by Big Silo trying to control our minds, and we can fight back!
The mighty scientists funded by our sponsors helped us develop Brain Protection Caps. They shipped a crate with the caps, and tried to send us the combination of the lock on Matrix. Unfortunately, their server went down before they could send the message! To crack the combination we need to level up our skills and fill our collective experience bar by collaborating on hackathon projects.
During the first hour, people will list what they want to work on, and form teams on the spot. Every project helps us fill our experience bar. Our skills increase when we work on anything related to Matrix.
Code, project management, art, documentation: every contribution will earn you Achievements that will fill our collective experience bar! Let’s strive to unlock the Matrix caps by mentoring each other, hacking on new ideas and bonding together as a community.
The hackathon is first and foremost about having fun and learning. We want to know what you worked on, what worked, what you struggled with, and what surprised you. We'll conclude the day by asking teams to summarize their day to others. We would like to livestream the sessions on our website, but you can opt-out if you're not comfortable with it.
After the project presentations, we will stay in HSBXL in the evening for a public Matrix Lounge Evening. We're inviting the entire Matrix community to spend a relaxed evening with food, drinks and interesting discussions about Matrix! We're asking all hackathon attendees to register</a> so we can best organize the event.
🕐️ Friday 30, 09:00 - 17:00 CET (local time)
📹 Project presentations at 17:00 CET (local time)
🛋️ Public Matrix Lounge Evening starting from 18:00 CET (local time)
🏢 HSBXL</a>, Rue Osseghem 53, 1080 Molenbeek
🍕 Snacks, cold drinks, lunch and dinner included
🧑‍💻 For hackers, mentors, artists, project managers & the entire community
🎫 Free but mandatory registration here</a>
💰 Sponsors welcome</a>
🔗</a>Saturday, 31st January & Sunday, 1st February - Booth</h2>
Once more, we are grateful to the FOSDEM organizers for granting us a booth for the whole weekend! If you want to come talk to the team, share your gripes and ideas or come see cool demos, this is your opportunity to do so! We will bring merch and stickers for the community to help us spread the word.

We're looking for volunteers to run the booth with us. This includes talking to the community, sharing project news, and distributing merch. Don't worry if it's your first time: We have a booth handbook ready for volunteers and want to limit the time commitment to 2 hours per day.
Reach out to events-wg@foundation.matrix.org</a> or in #events-wg:matrix.org</a> if you're interested in staffing the booth with us! We will work out together which slot works best for you.
🕐️ Saturday 1 to Sunday 2, 09:00 - 18:00 CET (local time)
🏢 Desk to be announced on FOSDEM's website</a>
🔗</a>Sunday, 1st February - Devroom</h2>
This year FOSDEM organisers tried to accommodate as many projects as possible by asking devroom managers to focus on themes more than on specific projects. They generously granted us a full day devroom on Sunday, 1st February, to talk about Decentralised Communication, and we're delighted to have received so many proposals!

We're rating which talks we think are the most interesting for the Decentralised Communications community, and will finalize a schedule by 15th December. We're looking forward to meeting people from the various decentralised communication communities, exchanging ideas, and seeing how we can collaborate more!
🕐️ Sunday 1, 09:00 - 17:00 CET (local time)
🏢 Room aw1126

Call for Participation to the FOSDEM 2026 Decentralised Communications Devroom

2025-11-05T10:00:00+00:00

The Matrix.org Foundation will coordinate the FOSDEM 2026 Decentralised Communication Devroom, and is requesting submissions for talks!

One of the most important roles for Free & Open Source Software right now is liberating users from being trapped and exploited by Big Tech. This is especially true of the fundamental need for humanity to communicate safely and securely, without being dependent on gatekeepers who pose a single point of control and failure. 
We'd like to invite you to propose technical talks covering the very latest progress across the whole space of Decentralised Communication - whether that's messaging/VoIP projects built on Matrix, XMPP, DeltaChat, ActivityPub, ATProto, Automerge etc. This isn't just about open standards or realtime communication: this is ensuring that we as individuals have full sovereignty over our ability to communicate - and can do so safely across fully open networks, decentralised across the whole Internet, protected from propaganda and the whims and vicissitudes of today's tech giants and their stakeholders.
We're particularly interested in technical talks on:

Providing mainstream-usable alternatives to centralised proprietary platforms</li>
Projects and protocols highlighting approaches which other projects and protocols can learn and benefit from</li>
The enormous challenge of safety in decentralised communication: mitigating spam; identifying and filtering slop; sharing blocklists without creating echo-chambers or enabling meta-abuse; protecting E2EE and fighting ChatControl; T&S tooling; etc.</li>
The challenge of verifying E2EE identity (decentralised key transparency etc)</li>
Local-first / P2P communication systems without any point of serverside failure.</li> </ul>
Marketing talks are not welcome.
🔗</a>Key dates</h2>
Please note the following deadlines, that are global for FOSDEM and that we can't extend.

Conference dates: 31 Jan and 1 Feb 2026</li>
Submission deadline: 30 November</li>
Announcement of selected talks: 15 December</li> </ul>
You must be available in person in Brussels</a> to present your talk.
🔗</a>Talk Details</h2>
The talks can follow one of the two formats:

20 min talk + 10 min Q&A, for topics that can be covered briefly</li>
50 min talk + 10 min Q&A, for more complex subjects which need more focus</li> </ul>
We strongly encourage you to prepare a demo when it makes sense, so people can actually see what your work looks like in practice.
Of course, the proposal must respect the FOSDEM terms as well:

The conference language is English. All content must relate to Free and Open Source Software. By participating in the event you agree to the publication of your recordings, slides and other content provided under the same licence as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY). </blockquote>
🔗</a>Code of Conduct</h2>
All speakers and attendees agree that all of the presentations and discussions in our Devroom are held under the guidelines set in the FOSDEM Code of Conduct</a>. We expect attendees, speakers, and volunteers to follow the CoC at all times.
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.
🔗</a>Submitting a Proposal</h2>
Proposals must be submitted on FOSDEM's conference management system</a>. When submitting a proposal make sure to select the Decentralised Communication Devroom.
We expect to receive more requests than we have slots available. The Devroom organisers will be reviewing the proposals and accepting them based on the potential positive impact the project has on the Decentralised Communication space.
No particular project or protocol will be favoured or prioritised in selecting talks; instead the most interesting talks will be selected from across all parties, favouring project diversity wherever possible.
If a project proposal has been turned down, it doesn't mean we don't believe it has good potential, and we strongly encourage you to highlight it within your ecosystem's news bulletins to give it some visibility.
🔗</a>Fringe Event</h2>
We are currently organising a Fringe Event that will take up the whole day on Friday January 30. If you book your travel and accommodation for FOSDEM, try to arrive on Thursday night to enjoy the full Friday!
You can follow our activities on our socials (Fediverse</a>, LinkedIn</a>, Bluesky</a>), you can follow our blog via RSS/atom</a>, or join the Events Working Group Matrix room</a> for updates and to get involved.

FOSDEM 2025 Wrap Up

2025-02-13T12:00:00+00:00

The 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.
🔗</a>Fringe Event</h2>
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</a> happening before or after FOSDEM are about. 

Group photo of the people attending the fringe event </figcaption> </figure>
Workadventure</a>, Nordeck</a> and Famedly</a> generously sponsored the 60 pizzas and €1500 worth of drinks at the event to keep us refreshed</a> and fed</a>! Our deepest gratitude to them and the Brussels Hackerspace HSBXL</a> for giving us a place to gather.

Recording of the barcamp session </figcaption> </figure>
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</a>.
🔗</a>Booth</h2>
The Matrix booth was located in the realtime communications corner, next to the XMPP</a> and Linphone</a> 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 </figcaption> </figure>
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</a>!
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</a>, Milton, Sumner</a>, td</a>, Nico</a>, Kim</a>, weeman</a>, Nadine</a>, Timo, Anoa</a>, Greg</a>, Bram</a>, Robin T</a>, 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.
🔗</a>Main Track Talk</h2>
Matthew had a Main Track Talk in Janson "The Road to Mainstream Matrix</a>" 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.

Matrix.org - FOSDEM

FOSDEM 2026 Wrap Up

FOSDEM Update

Find us at FOSDEM

Call for Participation to the FOSDEM 2026 Decentralised Communications Devroom

🔗</a>Key dates</h2> Please note the following deadlines, that are global for FOSDEM and that we can't extend.</p> Conference dates: 31 Jan and 1 Feb 2026</li> Submission deadline: 30 November</li>

🔗</a>Talk Details</h2> The talks can follow one of the two formats:</p> 20 min talk + 10 min Q&A, for topics that can be covered briefly</li>

FOSDEM 2025 Wrap Up