Share your knowledge with us about non-technical aspects of open source software development.

FOSS Backstage will take place on the 16th & 17th of March 2026 in Berlin.
Open Source software is not only a way of licensing code but also a model of collaboration and community. At FOSS Backstage, we want to explore the unique challenges and opportunities this model offers.

Together with our program committee, we want to shape a program that truly is “by the community for the community”. We are looking for talks which educate others on best practices or inspire further discussions in the following areas, which form our conference tracks:

Governance & Community

This encompasses all community and project management aspects of Open Source Projects, including InnerSource and OSPOs, DevRel, product management, methods of decision making and collaboration for teams scattered around the world, as well as concrete tools and procedures.

Economics

How can Open Source projects be economically feasible? What models for funding are there? How can employees convince their companies to contribute to upstream Open Source projects?

Legal & Compliance

Everything about the legal aspects of Open Source projects, such as licensing, copyright law and liability questions. How to manage dependencies from a legal point of view? How do government regulations impact Open Source projects?

Diversity & Inclusion

This track is for all talks that are about Diversity & Inclusivity in Open Source projects, specifically, problems and possible solutions, how to increase outreach, and more. We are also looking for talks about accessibility in Open Source, for example, accessible technical documentation, technical means or technologies that increase accessibility, such as screen readers, subtitles, and more.

Growing Open Source

This track is about how to increase awareness and adoption of Open Source in corporations as well as in government, public entities, and the general public.

Security

This track is set to answer questions like: How can rules and procedures in a FOSS project benefit its security? What are the best practices for handling security vulnerabilities for OSS projects? What can be done to secure your project's dependency stack? Which institutions can advance security in the open source ecosystem?

Design

This track deals with UX-Design in Open Source projects. How can user experience design be integrated into the development process? How can onboarding for designers look like? What is an example of great UX-Design in your project, and how was it realised?

For further inspiration and an overview on topics that are discussed at FOSS Backstage, you can have a look at the recordings of past editions of FOSS Backstage.

Related topics not explicitly listed above are, of course, welcome as well. We do not, however, accept product presentations or company marketing pitches. If you are seeking to market your company at FOSS Backstage, we’ll be delighted to send you our sponsoring prospectus and discuss all the benefits that a sponsorship entails. Please reach out to Paul at partner@foss-backstage.de to learn more.

Formats

We are offering the following formats at FOSS Backstage:

Talk (30 min)

Talks are the standard session format at FOSS Backstage. You present your topic in front of the audience within 30 minutes. Please include time for Q&A.

Workshop (60 min)

Workshops are an interactive format which requires active audience participation during the session. Usually, all participants of a workshop will have worked on a task at the end of the session.

Panel (40 min)

Panels are onstage discussions between a group of experts. Please provide at least a preliminary list of the participants when submitting a panel. We appreciate diverse line-ups.

Off Stage

This could be anything that doesn't need to be presented on a stage, for example, an exhibition of art, a hardware demonstration or a poster display.

Remote sessions

We do offer the possibility to give your talk remotely. Keep in mind that there will be fewer remote than onsite speaking slots.

Rules & Guidelines

If you want to submit your proposal for FOSS Backstage, please consider the following:

Rules

• We don‘t allow product presentations or company marketing pitches.
• You are not allowed to switch the topic or content of your session after the CfP submission period is over, except in emergencies. If you heavily alter your submission after the CfP has concluded, the session needs to be reevaluated by the program committee.
• A co-speaker has to be declared before the CfP submission period ends. Co-speakers that are added after the CfP has concluded do not receive free conference tickets, and we reserve the right to reject the addition of co-speakers after the CfP.
• We require direct email contact with our speakers for planning purposes.
• By submitting your proposal, you consent that your talk title and description, along with your photo and biography, will be made publicly available if your session is accepted. Talks will be recorded, and recordings will be made publicly available on our YouTube channel.
• Unfortunately, we cannot cover costs for travel or accommodation for our speakers.

Guidelines

Make sure you take the following guidelines to heart:

• Titles should be descriptive and must be less than 60 characters long.
• The abstract and talk description are the most important parts of your proposal, since talks will be rated by our program committee based on those. A good abstract contains a focused description of your talk and explains why your topic is relevant.
• The talk description is a more detailed look into your session: What will you be talking about? What will the audience learn?
• Please don’t include your biography or personal details in your abstract, since personal information will be removed before the review process starts to avoid bias.
• Title, abstract and description of your talk will be visible to everyone and will be used on our website if your proposal is accepted. Make sure to write clearly and concisely in full sentences and don’t exclusively use bullet points.

Procedures

All submissions will be reviewed blindly, meaning that the program committee is unable to see the submitter’s personal details. Only the title, abstract and description will be visible to the reviewers in order to reduce unconscious bias. After all talks are rated, we will inform you about the status of your submission. Talks can either be accepted, rejected or waitlisted. In case your talk is waitlisted, we will message you if a speaking slot opens up before the conference.

First-time speakers

Please don’t hesitate to submit your proposal if you haven’t spoken at FOSS Backstage before. We are always looking for new speakers who bring their unique perspectives to our conference. We want to grow a community at FOSS Backstage that is open to new people and ideas, and therefore explicitly encourage first-time speakers to submit their proposals.

If you need help with the CfP process or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at speaker@foss-backstage.de

Speaker perks

As a speaker at FOSS Backstage, you will, of course, get a free conference pass for the entire duration of the conference. If you already bought a ticket before your talk was accepted, we will refund the ticket you bought.

tl;dr

We are looking for sessions on all topics: governance, collaboration, legal, economics, security and design within the scope of FOSS. Your submissions will go through a blind review by our program committee. We will inform you about the status of your session as soon as the review process has concluded.

In case you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at speaker@foss-backstage.de

You can enter proposals until 2025-10-27 23:59 (Europe/Brussels).