FOSDEM 2018 Retrocomputing DevRoom Call for Participation

FOSDEM is a free software event that offers open source communities a place to meet, share ideas and collaborate. It is renown for being highly developer-oriented and brings together 8000+ participants from all over the world. It is held in the city of Brussels (Belgium).

FOSDEM 2018 will take place during the weekend of February 3rd-4th 2018. More details about the event can be found at http://www.fosdem.org

Call for Participation

The Retrocomputing DevRoom is a first-timer at FOSDEM, with talks about use of older computing hardware and software in modern times.

Presentation topics could include but are not limited to:

• Emulation of old systems to run videogames, legacy software, etc
• Open source software emulation/simulation
• Open hardware
• Operating systems/executives for retrocomputers/retrosystems
• Uses of retrocomputing today
• Other retrosystems topics
• Opportunities in retrocomputing
• Round tables

You are not limited to slide presentations, of course. Be creative. However, FOSDEM is an open source conference, therefore we ask you to stay clear of marketing presentations. We are not afraid of technical stuff: devrooms are a place for development teams to meet, discuss, hack and publicly present their project’s latest improvements and future directions.

If you will have special needs for your talk (e. g. because you will need to plug some sort of a system), please note that clearly in your proposal so that we can provide it.

You can use the Wikipedia definition of retrocomputing as a reference definition to see if you talk qualifies, although it is not exclusive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocomputing

Important dates

• 25 Nov 2017: submission deadline for talk proposals
• 15 Dec 2017: announcement of the final schedule
• 4 Feb 2018: Retrocomputing dev room

Useful information

Use the FOSDEM Pentabarf tool to submit your proposal: https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM18

If necessary, create a Pentabarf account and activate it. Please reuse your account from previous years if you have already created it.

Details on submission:

• In the “Person” section, provide First name, Last name (in the “General” tab), Email (in the “Contact” tab) and Bio (“Abstract” field in the “Description” tab).
• Submit a proposal by clicking on “Create event”.
• Important! Select the “Retrocomputing DevRoom” track (on the “General” tab). If you do not select a track, then nobody, from any track, will look at your submission!
• Provide the title of your talk (“Event title” in the “General” tab).
• Provide a description of the subject of the talk and the intended audience (in the “Abstract” field of the “Description” tab)
• Provide a rough outline of the talk or goals of the session (a short list of bullet points covering topics that will be discussed) in the “Full description” field in the “Description” tab
• Provide an expected length of your talk in the “Duration” field, including discussion. The default duration is 30 minutes.

Please note neither FOSDEM nor the Retrocomputing DevRoom will reimburse any expenses you incur

Recording of talks

The FOSDEM organizers plan to have live streaming and recording fully working, both for remote/later viewing of talks, and so that people can watch streams in the hallways when rooms are full. This requires speakers to consent to being recorded and streamed.

If you plan to be a speaker, please understand that by doing so you implicitly give consent for your talk to be recorded and streamed.

The recordings will be published under the same license as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY).

Contact

The Retrocomputing DevRoom is managed by Pau Garcia Quiles (retrocomputing-devroom-manager@fosdem.org).

A mailing list of speakers, audience and the curious is available, please subscribe at https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/retrocomputing-devroom

Hope to hear from you soon! And please forward this announcement.