XMPP Summit 28 (We have a date!)
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
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
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@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.
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!
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@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
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
Hi Daniel, Thanks for taking the time to list the different possibilities available for organizing the summit, and even more thanks for taking on the job of (co)organizing it. * I do enjoy the format of being together in a room that is both not too cramped and not too big (one may argue that the thon rooms are a bit big if we stay the same number). I do not care for the fanciness too much (if I have to go to a water fountain to get water, I can live), but having everyone get lunch at the same place, with enough options to satisfy everyone. * One day could feel too short in my opinion, we might involuntarily go too fast on some topics if we feel rushed, which would be bad. I guess having people hash out their list of topics before the event (and completing it live) could provide a rough approximation of the duration, but that requires even more planning, and it would feel pretty bad to give up on a topic due to lack of time. There's no way to predict the future though. * Regarding the fee model, I can only speculate about other people’s situation and behavior, but I fear it might make people hesitant to go if it requires some administrative work to get a waiver, and of course impostor’s syndrome might play a role. I myself am in the middle of the scale: the total cost of going to Brussels is not a rounding error on my budget, but if I can afford it, and having a fee on top of that would make me hesitate¹; and I would rather not rob the opportunity off someone who is in a worse financial situation than me by requesting a waiver. I do understand that there are constraints here that are out of our control, particularly that sponsors are of course free to sponsor the XSF or specific events at any time, which complicates organizing quite a bit. Still, I am wary of the consequences such a decision could have on attendance, which is already on a slightly downward trend if my memory is correct. Cheers, Mathieu ¹: those are very different events, but having to pay the real cost of the room per participant would make the summit just as (or more than) expensive as, for example, the Chaos Communication Congress, for reference (but shorter and without the flora).
On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 11:14, Daniel Gultsch <daniel@gultsch.de> wrote:
• 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)
Sadly I only made it to the last one, and it was good - but I'd have been fine without the fancy lunch, to be honest. The lunchtime *company* was great, though, as always!
• 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.
As you know, I'm working on various options, paid and otherwise.
• 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.
I'd like to stick with 2 days if we can.
• 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.
I'm entirely unconvinced that the Summit offers €250 worth of value to most people. I also think the value increases the more people who are there (at least to me), and this especially includes relative newcomers and others who may well not be able to justify a €250 fee, even if they can afford it easily. (To be clear, the more people who are there /and also feel empowered and encouraged to speak up/!) If people cease to be able to come for free, then I firmly believe it lowers the value for all of us. Dave.
Hello everyone, this is coming late, but first of all, many thanks to Daniel for reaching out on this topic early and elaborating! On your four initial questions: * I very admire everything, even if that's a luxury choice - because this event and you all deserves it. Though, I was not happy with the amount of money we spent vs. our actual total budget at XSF (unfortunately). Not ignoring that we had generous sponsors, but still it used to be a lot. * No, unfortunately, I have not contacts. But may in Hamburg my employer could sponsor a place. * To answer the question of the daily well, I we can also crawl for potential agenda topics and see how much we fill a day and if the agenda is worth it or we could have a well organised online follow-up (happy to help). But I admire goffis suggestion much more spending time working or being together. It's valuable time in my view. ** What could also happen is that we reduce interest to travel to Brussels for just one day. Less people make the event maybe also less worth / more expensive. * First of all, I think this is correct on the limited XSF budget and effort in the recent years. (And being member of the Board mostly in this time I also take responsibilty here and this one reason why I won't apply again for Board the next phase.) Still, I don't think raising a fee is the answer. To be honest and expanding the perspective as Syndace (in chat said): We don't need to meet (always and by hard) in Brussels; there are cheaper options for sure. Just out of traditions and failure to address the situation that would lead now to charge people is not a positive development in my view. That siutation would rather question to me: ** How is our sponsor engagement sufficient? ** Is this the right time and place? ** Where else could we maybe even have a better venue? ** If we find better can cheaper places, can we have more physical meetings? ** Do we need to be in Brussels by hard until we solve the financial situation, we should go for less expensive places / cities? Are we even sure at least 50% of the participants would be okay to pay a 250 / 150 EUR fee? That would be 10-15 people according to the last years participation, right? How many people would consider not even to pay 50€? And yes to Peter & Matt (in the SCAM chat), sponsoring is something that needs to be continued as we did for 2025. Hence, more in the bank would make the discussion less pressing. (Note: Also many thanks to Alex, Daniel, Matt for also sponsoring dinner and with their time organising (please correct me if I am mistaken).) In general, one may be interested in the disussion in the SCAM chat: scam@muc.xmpp.org Thanks all, Eddie On 11/10/2025 00:47, Dave Cridland <dave@cridland.net> wrote:
On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 11:14, Daniel Gultsch <daniel@gultsch.de> wrote:
• 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)
Sadly I only made it to the last one, and it was good - but I'd have been fine without the fancy lunch, to be honest.
The lunchtime *company* was great, though, as always!
• 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.
As you know, I'm working on various options, paid and otherwise.
• 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.
I'd like to stick with 2 days if we can.
• 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.
I'm entirely unconvinced that the Summit offers €250 worth of value to most people.
I also think the value increases the more people who are there (at least to me), and this especially includes relative newcomers and others who may well not be able to justify a €250 fee, even if they can afford it easily.
(To be clear, the more people who are there /and also feel empowered and encouraged to speak up/!)
If people cease to be able to come for free, then I firmly believe it lowers the value for all of us.
Dave.
Hi! Many thanks for bringing this up early, and putting in all the work that goes into this. It is highly appreciated. I get that the summit is costly for the XSF, and I don't want to downplay that: it's definitely a significant expense. But I don't think introducing any kind of "people-that-go-to-the-summit-should-pay" model is a good idea. It raises the bar for attendance, and I'm worried it would hit some groups harder than others. For example, people who can write this off as a business expense might not think twice, but others, especially individual contributors or those coming on their own dime, would be much more affected. Given that our attendee pool already isn't all that diverse, I think this would add another filter we really don't want. As long as there's room in the budget (and we're not taking away from something more important), I think the XSF should continue to cover it. Keeping the summit accessible to everyone feels more valuable in the long run. Kind regards, Guus On Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 11:24 PM <emus@mailbox.org> wrote:
Hello everyone,
this is coming late, but first of all, many thanks to Daniel for reaching out on this topic early and elaborating!
On your four initial questions:
* I very admire everything, even if that's a luxury choice - because this event and you all deserves it. Though, I was not happy with the amount of money we spent vs. our actual total budget at XSF (unfortunately). Not ignoring that we had generous sponsors, but still it used to be a lot.
* No, unfortunately, I have not contacts. But may in Hamburg my employer could sponsor a place.
* To answer the question of the daily well, I we can also crawl for potential agenda topics and see how much we fill a day and if the agenda is worth it or we could have a well organised online follow-up (happy to help). But I admire goffis suggestion much more spending time working or being together. It's valuable time in my view. ** What could also happen is that we reduce interest to travel to Brussels for just one day. Less people make the event maybe also less worth / more expensive.
* First of all, I think this is correct on the limited XSF budget and effort in the recent years. (And being member of the Board mostly in this time I also take responsibilty here and this one reason why I won't apply again for Board the next phase.) Still, I don't think raising a fee is the answer. To be honest and expanding the perspective as Syndace (in chat said): We don't need to meet (always and by hard) in Brussels; there are cheaper options for sure. Just out of traditions and failure to address the situation that would lead now to charge people is not a positive development in my view.
That siutation would rather question to me: ** How is our sponsor engagement sufficient? ** Is this the right time and place? ** Where else could we maybe even have a better venue? ** If we find better can cheaper places, can we have more physical meetings? ** Do we need to be in Brussels by hard until we solve the financial situation, we should go for less expensive places / cities?
Are we even sure at least 50% of the participants would be okay to pay a 250 / 150 EUR fee? That would be 10-15 people according to the last years participation, right? How many people would consider not even to pay 50€?
And yes to Peter & Matt (in the SCAM chat), sponsoring is something that needs to be continued as we did for 2025. Hence, more in the bank would make the discussion less pressing.
(Note: Also many thanks to Alex, Daniel, Matt for also sponsoring dinner and with their time organising (please correct me if I am mistaken).)
In general, one may be interested in the disussion in the SCAM chat: scam@muc.xmpp.org
Thanks all, Eddie
On 11/10/2025 00:47, Dave Cridland <dave@cridland.net> wrote:
On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 11:14, Daniel Gultsch <daniel@gultsch.de> wrote:
• 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)
Sadly I only made it to the last one, and it was good - but I'd have been fine without the fancy lunch, to be honest.
The lunchtime *company* was great, though, as always!
• 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.
As you know, I'm working on various options, paid and otherwise.
• 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.
I'd like to stick with 2 days if we can.
• 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.
I'm entirely unconvinced that the Summit offers €250 worth of value to most people.
I also think the value increases the more people who are there (at least to me), and this especially includes relative newcomers and others who may well not be able to justify a €250 fee, even if they can afford it easily.
(To be clear, the more people who are there /and also feel empowered and encouraged to speak up/!)
If people cease to be able to come for free, then I firmly believe it lowers the value for all of us.
Dave.
participants (8)
-
Daniel Gultsch -
Dave Cridland -
emus＠mailbox.org -
Goffi -
Guus der Kinderen -
Kevin Smith -
mathieui -
Peter Saint-Andre