Looking Ahead to FOSDEM 2017 — Ready for Round Two

With 2016 winding down, I’m already looking forward to one of the brightest highlights of early 2017: FOSDEM. After my first visit earlier this year, I’m officially hooked. One weekend was all it took—one weekend of overflowing devrooms, hallway conversations that pulled me off-schedule in the best possible ways, and more open-source enthusiasm per square meter than anywhere else on the planet.

Now I’m counting the days until I can head back to Brussels for round two.

DNS: Returning to Familiar Territory

Last FOSDEM, the DNS devroom felt like home—a comforting mix of deep-dive technical talks, new ideas, and people who get equally excited about the subtleties of resolvers and the joys (or pains) of DNSSEC. For 2017, I’m planning to spend even more time there.

There’s something energizing about seeing the community evolve year to year. New ideas, better tools, clever tricks, and the kind of discussions that make you rethink how you’ve approached problems for years. I’m ready for all of it.

Ada: Still New, Still Intriguing

Ada was a completely new world for me in 2016, and I’m still fascinated by it. Over the past year, I’ve poked at the language here and there—slowly, tentatively—even if I’m nowhere near fluent yet.

I’m excited to return to its devroom with a bit more context under my belt. Last time, everything was new. This time, maybe I’ll even understand half of what’s going on. Progress!

Building on New Friendships

One of the most surprising joys of FOSDEM 2016 was the people I met—DNS folks, Ada folks, random-passersby-who-became-friends folks. It made the event feel less like a conference and more like a mini-reunion I didn’t know I needed.

FOSDEM 2017 is a chance to reconnect with those familiar faces and meet many more. I’ve learned that the best discussions often happen between sessions in the cafeteria, not during them in the lecture halls.

So if you’re planning to be there, let me know! I’ll be wandering between DNS devroom, Ada devroom, and whichever devroom I get accidentally pulled into.

See You in Brussels

I already know the drill: the busy corridors, the chilly February weather, the food trucks, the smell of too many laptops running full tilt, and the constant feeling of “I wish I could clone myself to attend two talks at once.”

I can’t wait.

Bring on FOSDEM 2017.