conference

The call for proposals is open for the COSCUP Fediverse track in Taipei, Taiwan. ActivityPub-related software, including server and client implementations, are great topics for the event.

COSCUP (“Conference for Open Source Coders, Users, and Promoters”) is the FOSDEM of East Asia. Run by the Open Source community in Taiwan, it brings together people excited about FOSS across the region.

For the first time, this year, members of the Korean ActivityPub developer community FediDev KR are joining up with FediLUG of Japan to program and run a Fediverse track at COSCUP. This has the potential to be a huge step forward for the Fediverse developer community. Although many major projects, like Fedify and Misskey, are created and promoted in East Asia, distance and language barriers make it hard for East Asian devs to participate in European and North American in-person events.

The Fediverse track is open to proposals about ActivityPub implementations, clients for ActivityPub platforms, ancillary services, libraries and toolkits. But also, as at FOSDEM, talks about the human aspects of Fediverse technology, like moderation, policy and governance, are welcome and encouraged. This event looks like it will cover as much interesting conceptual space as its twin at FOSDEM.

Hong Minhee, hongminhee@hollo.social, was one of the main speakers at FOSDEM’s Social Web devroom this year. Their talk about Fedify was important, but even more important was their effort to bridge the gap between Asia’s and Europe’s Fediverse development communities.

I (Evan) hope that COSCUP brings together many Asian developers, but I also hope that North American and European individuals and teams put in proposals as well. Knitting together these two important communities on the Fediverse requires effort from both sides. That’s why I’m applying to speak (about ActivityPub 1.1), and why I hope to see many familiar faces among the new ones in Taiwan.

We’ve got an amazing lineup for the Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM 2025. We managed to fit 12 talks into 4 hours, covering a huge range of topics related to Open Source software and the Social Web.

FOSDEM is the premier Free and Open Source software conference in Europe. It’s a grass-roots event, available free of charge, and attracts hackers and advocates from around the world. The event is organized into presentation tracks called “developer rooms” or “devrooms”, which bring afficionados of a particular technology all together for a long block of presentations on related topics.

The main programming in the Social Web dev room on Saturday, Feb 1, will focus primarily on technical topics. A related Social Web Birds of a Feather (BOF) meetup on Sunday, Feb 2 will feature another 5 presentations about social aspects and advocacy for the Fediverse. It’s still in the scheduling phase; BOFs get scheduled late at FOSDEM. But the speakers have confirmed, and it should be a really good track.

Finally, SWF and Hacker Space Brussels are hosting Social Web After Hours on Sunday, Feb 2. It should provide some closing talk. Some of the most interesting speakers in the Social Web will be presenting; this should be a great way to wrap up the FOSDEM weekend.

To stay informed about Social Web activities at FOSDEM, follow the hashtag, or join the Social Web Devroom Matrix channel on the FOSDEM Matrix server.