30 Sep
2025
30 Sep
'25
4:14 a.m.
Hi all,
We have a date for FOSDEM 2026: January 31st to February 1st
This means we also have a date for Summit 28: January 29th - January 30th
As the person who has (co)organized the last two summits I would like
to start a discussion on the next summit by asking a few questions and
floating some ideas.
• How did you like the format of the last three summits? (Renting a
conference room in a hotel with lunch provided (in buffet style) by
the hotel)
• Do you have a concrete lead for some company or organization that
could provide us with a conference room for free in the city of
Brussels? I’m not asking for vague suggestions like "maybe someone
could try to reach out to xyz" I’m asking if you personally know
someone who has a key to a room.
• Do we want a 1 day or 2 day summit? Last year the 'official' part of
the summit was over after 1.2 days and had we known this we could have
probably managed to squeeze it all into one day.
• If we do a repeat of the last two (three) years (which i feel is
somewhat likely due to how difficult it is to find places that would
have us for free and because I’m under the impression that people like
the "fancy environment" with the snacks and the fancy bottles of
water) I feel somewhat strongly that we should switch to a model in
which every participant pays for their own seat (at per cost) and add
a fairly generous fee-waiver on top of it.
I’m very much in favor of keeping the Summit accessible.
(Socio)economicly speaking our community is very diverse. We have
people in our community who would not be able to come if they had to
pay the ~250 Euro the hotel charges us per person. But we also have
people in our community to whom this is a rounding error in the
overall travel+accommodation cost. (I have personally been on both
sides of this.)
The XSF notoriously doesn’t have a lot of money and efforts to change
this over the last 3 years haven’t been very successful. Switching to
a fee waiver model would allow board (or whoever) to set aside a fixed
amount and send x (where x=10 for example) applicants to the summit
for free.
cheers
Daniel
30 Sep
30 Sep
8:27 a.m.
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for taking care of this.
Le mardi 30 septembre 2025, 12:14:04 heure d’été d’Europe centrale Daniel
Gultsch a écrit :
Hi all,
We have a date for FOSDEM 2026: January 31st to February 1st
This means we also have a date for Summit 28: January 29th - January 30th
As the person who has (co)organized the last two summits I would like
to start a discussion on the next summit by asking a few questions and
floating some ideas.
• How did you like the format of the last three summits? (Renting a
conference room in a hotel with lunch provided (in buffet style) by
the hotel)
The organization was good and the event nice. But Thon EU is really a luxury
option in my opinion, and I would be fine with something less fancy.
• Do we want a 1 day or 2 day summit? Last year the
'official' part of
the summit was over after 1.2 days and had we known this we could have
probably managed to squeeze it all into one day.
One day feels too short to me. If the discussions end before the end of day
two, I think we should take the opportunity of having so many XMPP people at
the same location to work in groups of interests, as we have done in the past,
or to do a hackathon like we have done another year.
Sometimes discussions don't lead to concrete specs or code, so doing a draft
implementation while the discussion is still fresh in one’s mind sounds like a
good option.
Last year I had to leave early to prepare FOSDEM, but I would definitely have
stayed the whole day if I could, and would have loved some form of hackathon.
Also, some hard-to-implement things like moving to OMEMO:2 would be easier
with some of the best specialists present in the room.
• If we do a repeat of the last two (three) years
(which i feel is
somewhat likely due to how difficult it is to find places that would
have us for free and because I’m under the impression that people like
the "fancy environment" with the snacks and the fancy bottles of
water)
While I appreciate the good lunch we've had, I, for one, don't really care
about a fancy location. What's important to me is being with other XMPP
people.
I feel somewhat strongly that we should switch to a
model in
which every participant pays for their own seat (at per cost) and add
a fairly generous fee-waiver on top of it.
I’m very much in favor of keeping the Summit accessible.
(Socio)economicly speaking our community is very diverse. We have
people in our community who would not be able to come if they had to
pay the ~250 Euro the hotel charges us per person. But we also have
people in our community to whom this is a rounding error in the
overall travel+accommodation cost. (I have personally been on both
sides of this.)
Honestly, I clearly couldn’t come with such a fee to pay. It's already really
costly for me in terms of money and time (I’ve had a full day of traveling to
come, and the same of course to return).
I would rather not have the XSF dinner or eat cheap pizza than have to pay to
attend the summit. And even if I were eligible, I wouldn’t be happy with a
fee-waiver, as other people would need it more than me, and I would find it
unfair.
Note that I’m not sure that I’ll come this year anyway, it’s a general answer.
The XSF notoriously doesn’t have a lot of money and
efforts to change
this over the last 3 years haven’t been very successful. Switching to
a fee waiver model would allow board (or whoever) to set aside a fixed
amount and send x (where x=10 for example) applicants to the summit
for free.
It's totally understandable that XSF has difficulties handling that. I'm
wondering what others have to say about your suggestion, or if it's possible
to find a cheaper location, and if not, how much it would actually cost per
person in the end. Again, I'm not even sure to come this year, so it's just an
opinion at this point.
cheers
Daniel
Best,
Goffi
9:17 a.m.
Hi,
the intent of my email was just to gather some general feedback and
vibes. I have no intention of responding to them individually but
Goffi is helping me to make some additional points that I find
important.
On Tue, Sep 30, 2025 at 4:27 PM Goffi <goffi(a)goffi.org> wrote:
I would rather not have the XSF dinner or eat cheap
pizza
I 100% agree with the sentiment. I would also prefer a good Summit
over Dinner. However the XSF hasn’t actually paid for dinner in a very
long time. So getting rid of the dinner doesn’t actually free up
budget elsewhere. If it ever came to this I would personally always
make the call to rather move the dinner to a everyone pays for
themselves model.
It's totally understandable that XSF has
difficulties handling that. I'm
wondering what others have to say about your suggestion, or if it's possible
to find a cheaper location, and if not, how much it would actually cost per
person in the end. Again, I'm not even sure to come this year, so it's just an
opinion at this point.
A less fancy hotel is not moving the needle significantly. I don’t
have 2026 numbers but a cheaper hotel would make it go from 250 to 200
or so.
The cheap option would be to find someone who can give us a room for free.
Honestly, I clearly couldn’t come with such a fee to
pay. It's already really
costly for me in terms of money and time (I’ve had a full day of traveling to
come, and the same of course to return).
[...]
than have to pay to
attend the summit. And even if I were eligible, I wouldn’t be happy with a
fee-waiver, as other people would need it more than me, and I would find it
unfair.
Yes I’m aware that "financial imposter syndrome" is a big risk that we
need to mitigate when moving to a fee waiver program.
Let me be clear: You absolutely deserve to be there and should have
your fee waived.
And we need to make this clear to other people as well (if we move to
this model). When I said "generous fee waiver" the emphasis was on
generous. And the example number of 10¹ was picked deliberately
because it represents roughly have the people who came last year.
cheers
Daniel
¹: The actual number would of course be decided upon by board and scam
or something. Not by me.
10:01 a.m.
Hi Daniel,
First, thank you for all your work on previous summits, and for starting
this thread early so that we can plan ahead.
Second, I will reply below with my XSF Treasurer hat on.
On 9/30/25 4:14 AM, Daniel Gultsch wrote:
• If we do a repeat of the last two (three) years
(which i feel is
somewhat likely due to how difficult it is to find places that would
have us for free and because I’m under the impression that people like
the "fancy environment" with the snacks and the fancy bottles of
water) I feel somewhat strongly that we should switch to a model in
which every participant pays for their own seat (at per cost) and add
a fairly generous fee-waiver on top of it.
I’m very much in favor of keeping the Summit accessible.
(Socio)economicly speaking our community is very diverse. We have
people in our community who would not be able to come if they had to
pay the ~250 Euro the hotel charges us per person. But we also have
people in our community to whom this is a rounding error in the
overall travel+accommodation cost. (I have personally been on both
sides of this.)
Another approach would be "pay what you can". I don't know the situation
on the ground because I haven't attended a summit in many years, but if
attendees know what the cost is then they might be willing to pay their
share, with the XSF picking up the expense for those who can't afford to
do so.
I agree with Goffi that unfortunately this could put some attendees in
an awkward position, but we could perhaps mitigate that somehow (e.g.,
assign a trusted third party for communicating about these matters).
The XSF notoriously doesn’t have a lot of money and
efforts to change
this over the last 3 years haven’t been very successful. Switching to
a fee waiver model would allow board (or whoever) to set aside a fixed
amount and send x (where x=10 for example) applicants to the summit
for free.
The XSF did much better financially in 2025 because we directly asked
companies to become or remain sponsors, which several companies very
generously did. [1] If we can sustain this level of contributions, then
the summit should be affordable for us, especially if we can find a less
"fancy" meeting location, as you say.
Peter
[1] Many thanks to, in alphabetical order, Erlang Solutions, ProcessOne,
Tigase, and Tygrys for their sponsorship, and to Isode for their
significant sponsorship of the 2025 summit!
10:17 a.m.
I don’t have a lot to add here, other than that I agree with trying to do something, and
trying this seems reasonable to me.
/K
On 30 Sep 2025, at 11:14, Daniel Gultsch
<daniel(a)gultsch.de> wrote:
Hi all,
We have a date for FOSDEM 2026: January 31st to February 1st
This means we also have a date for Summit 28: January 29th - January 30th
As the person who has (co)organized the last two summits I would like
to start a discussion on the next summit by asking a few questions and
floating some ideas.
• How did you like the format of the last three summits? (Renting a
conference room in a hotel with lunch provided (in buffet style) by
the hotel)
• Do you have a concrete lead for some company or organization that
could provide us with a conference room for free in the city of
Brussels? I’m not asking for vague suggestions like "maybe someone
could try to reach out to xyz" I’m asking if you personally know
someone who has a key to a room.
• Do we want a 1 day or 2 day summit? Last year the 'official' part of
the summit was over after 1.2 days and had we known this we could have
probably managed to squeeze it all into one day.
• If we do a repeat of the last two (three) years (which i feel is
somewhat likely due to how difficult it is to find places that would
have us for free and because I’m under the impression that people like
the "fancy environment" with the snacks and the fancy bottles of
water) I feel somewhat strongly that we should switch to a model in
which every participant pays for their own seat (at per cost) and add
a fairly generous fee-waiver on top of it.
I’m very much in favor of keeping the Summit accessible.
(Socio)economicly speaking our community is very diverse. We have
people in our community who would not be able to come if they had to
pay the ~250 Euro the hotel charges us per person. But we also have
people in our community to whom this is a rounding error in the
overall travel+accommodation cost. (I have personally been on both
sides of this.)
The XSF notoriously doesn’t have a lot of money and efforts to change
this over the last 3 years haven’t been very successful. Switching to
a fee waiver model would allow board (or whoever) to set aside a fixed
amount and send x (where x=10 for example) applicants to the summit
for free.
cheers
Daniel
6
days inactive
6
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Daniel Gultsch -
Goffi -
Kevin Smith -
Peter Saint-Andre