Bring together a few thousand open source developers and advocates, and we guarantee that you will be energised and inspired by their enthusiasm and innovation.

For the past 20 years,  the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) has proved that there is no shortage of fresh and disruptive ideas in these participants’ minds.

From the latest progress in Risc-V  to open source firmware and bootloaders building and breaking components of the Internet of Things, FOSDEM can seem overwhelming with its vast number of talks and presentations. This year, the conference featured 836 speakers, 871 events and 71 tracks.

Presenters and attendees came with plenty of ideas for public services: check out the talks on open source for cities and how to revolutionise municipal governments. There's ample food for thought for policymakers too: take a look at the talks on community and ethics or those on freedom.

Over the past few weeks, OSOR has reported on some these topics: see our stories on new open source solutions for Dutch and Danish municipalities, and our report on Spain's first Risc-V chip, Lagarto. We will soon upload articles on other inspirational and practical implementations of open source software in public services that were presented at FOSDEM, examples of which include audio streaming and geospatial mapping.

Sustainability also featured in FOSDEM’s 20th edition. Does free and open source software need it? This debate concluded that it is a crucial issue for many communities. OSOR also weighed in on this question.

OSOR's mission is to support public services on their journey towards open source, and our steady stream of examples shows that the numbers are increasing. However, we also know that open source projects in the public sector often struggle with sustainability, thus limiting their success. That is why we are working on community-driven practical guidelines for creating sustainable open source communities in the public sector. If you would like to help us shape these guidelines, our survey is open until the end of February and it takes just a few moments to complete.