A return to in-person attendance at FOSDEM 2023
At FOSDEM 2023 [1] in Brussels, FOMO (the fear of missing out) was the buzz word, not only for people who did not make it to the event, but also for the conference attendees. Although the event in the Belgian capital attracted a slightly smaller audience than in years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, visitors repeatedly turned to live-streams because the conference rooms hosting popular topics quickly filled up.
The First Instance
A particularly large number of comments and FOMO statements appeared on Mastodon, where the #Fosdem topic was very popular for some time. Thanks to Elon Musk, Mastodon is currently experiencing a flurry of activity. GitHub developer Kris Nóva, who was unexpectedly dragged into the Mastodon universe last year, vividly described how lively things were. Her plan to build a separate Mastodon instance, Hachyderm [2], for friends took off with thousands of new users gradually migrating to the instance.
Upon reaching 30,000 accounts, the quite powerful hardware in Nóva's basement broke down. It was time to move the service to a cloud, and Nóva chose German provider Hetzner. The data protection regulations (hashtag #GDPRforever) were probably also a decisive factor in the move, along with Nóva and her supporting developers needing to field some of the inevitable questions about the general handling of a privately managed Twitter alternative. Nóva pointed out in her keynote that this is where the pitfalls lurk. If you are thinking about setting up a Mastodon instance, you will definitely want to watch the video [3].
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Nitrux 6.0 Now Ready to Rock Your World
The latest iteration of the Debian-based distribution includes all kinds of newness.
-
Linux Foundation Reports that Open Source Delivers Better ROI
In a report that may surprise no one in the Linux community, the Linux Foundation found that businesses are finding a 5X return on investment with open source software.
-
Keep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
-
Kernel 7.0 Now in Testing
Linus Torvalds has announced the first Release Candidate (RC) for the 7.x kernel is available for those who want to test it.
-
Introducing matrixOS, an Immutable Gentoo-Based Linux Distro
It was only a matter of time before a developer decided one of the most challenging Linux distributions needed to be immutable.
-
Chaos Comes to KDE in KaOS
KaOS devs are making a major change to the distribution, and it all comes down to one system.
-
New Linux Botnet Discovered
The SSHStalker botnet uses IRC C2 to control systems via legacy Linux kernel exploits.
-
The Next Linux Kernel Turns 7.0
Linus Torvalds has announced that after Linux kernel 6.19, we'll finally reach the 7.0 iteration stage.
-
Linux From Scratch Drops SysVinit Support
LFS will no longer support SysVinit.
-
LibreOffice 26.2 Now Available
With new features, improvements, and bug fixes, LibreOffice 26.2 delivers a modern, polished office suite without compromise.