Introduction
Every year, somewhere around the third Saturday of September, hackers, free software users and open source adepts celebrate Software Freedom Day. For this event, HSBXL organises a day of interesting talks on the merits, uses and principles of free and open source software, as well as adjacent topics such as privacy, open data and security. This year our theme is “Organising with FOSS”, in all its different senses and interpretations. Join us for a great day of talks with a nice meal at the end and drinks and snacks throughout the day. The event is free as in freedom, so please pay your drinks, but we can flash a Linux ISO on your USB flashdrive if you’d like!
Talks
As always, we have a great selection of talks from our hackerspace and beyond planned, all in the theme of “Organising with FOSS”. We’re excited for everyone to join, discuss, ask questions, and have a drink throughout the talks.
While doors open at 11h30, the talks will start at 13:00. You can find the schedule below (subject to minor changes):
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13:00 - 13:45 (45 min)
Organising awareness about digital sovereignty
By Jurgen
- An introduction to BeLibre vzw and their Leak Detector tool for auditing municipal, school, and healthcare websites. Learn how to run individual or bulk web scans, interpret the resulting privacy reports, and effectively present findings to local governments.
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14:00 - 14:30 (30 min)
OpenStreetMap: how to help map your surroundings
By Kai
- OpenStreetMap, what isn’t it, what is it and why do we need more people participating
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14:45 - 15:30 (45 min)
Lessons from 25 years of self-hosting mail servers
By Alexander Mikhailian
- Running mail servers for family, my own business, and a media company over the last 25 years has shown me the true power of self-hosting. While independent mail servers have become a rare art, maintaining full control over your email remains entirely achievable and deeply rewarding with the right approach.
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15:45 - 16:15 (30 min)
Public money, public code: the Belgian eID software stack
By AltF4
- Overview of the open-source ecosystem behind Belgium’s electronic identity card software and middleware. This talk will highlight the implementation of public-code principles within public sector IT systems.
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16:30 - 17:15 (45 min)
Framasoft as a framework for FOSS alternatives
By Luna
- Using Framasoft as an illustration, we’ll discuss various FOSS tools to help you organise, collaborate, communicate, have fun and make your life easier!
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17:30 - 18:00 (30 min)
Designing your own ESP32 board
By Alexander Engelhardt
- Discover how Norbert32, a custom ESP32-based development board, went from an idea to a working PCB. We’ll explore the key steps, design choices and lessons learned along the way, and see what it takes to design your own microcontroller dev board
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18:00 - 19:00 (6 times 10 min)
Show and tell
By You?
- An open-mic session for attendees to showcase hardware projects, software hacks, or lightning ideas. Come over and share your passion with the community.
Food
After the talks we will have a communal meal, with of course vegetarian/vegan options. The contribution for the meal will be 15 euro/person. Please check back here later for the registration, since it helps us to plan for the right amount of food. Currently we’re still waiting to see what the weather is going to be like.
Stream
We highly recommend coming in person, but if you can’t make it, you will be able to follow the event through a live stream as well (for the speakers who agree). We will publish the link on this page close to the event, so please save the date and come back to check on the day itself!
Support
Software Freedom Day at Hackerspace Brussels wouldn’t be possible without the support we get from our own team and volunteers, as well as support from datacenter and hosting provider Unix-Solutions and the VGC (Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie).
