Brussels came alive this weekend as Mozilla joined FOSDEM 2025, Europe’s premier open-source conference. FOSDEM wasn’t just another tech gathering. It is a representation of a vibrant community, open source innovation, and the spirit of collaboration. And we’re proud of being part of this amazing event since its inception.
This year, FOSDEM is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And unlike previous years’ gloomy weather, this year, we were blessed with surprising sunshine, almost as if the universe was applauding a quarter-century of open-source achievements.
As for Mozilla, our presence this year was extra special as we introduced our new brand. Over the weekend, we ran a bingo challenge in Mozilla’s and Thunderbird’s stands, where participants could play to win exclusive Mozilla t-shirts any many more special swag. It was a really fun way to introduce many projects from across pan-Mozilla.
We also showcased a sneak peek of Firefox Nightly’s new tab group feature in the Mozilla booth and gave away 2300 free cookies to participants on Saturday.
Here are some more highlights from our presence this year:
Highlights from Saturday
- Mozilla engineering manager Marco Casteluccio presented a talk about the usage of LLM’s to support Firefox developers with code review in the main track.
- Firefox engineer Valentin Gosu also presented a talk in the DNS track about his journey on using the getaddrinfo API in Firefox.
- Another Firefox engineer who’s working on Firefox Profiler, Nazim Can Altinova also presented a talk in the Web Performance track. It’s also worth mentioning that the Web Performance devroom was co-run by some Mozillians.
- Danny Colin, one of Mozilla’s active contributors, hosted a WebExtension BoF session featuring representatives from Mozilla Firefox (Rob Wu & Simeon Vincent) and Google Chrome’s extensions team (Oliver Dunk). This was the first time the team ran a Birds Of a Feather session, and it’s very likely that we’re going to do the same next year.
- Danny Colin also hosted the Community Gathering where old and new contributors got together to discuss the future of Mozilla’s community. It was really nice to have an interactive session like this where all of us can share our perspective, so thank you to all of you who attended the session!
Highlights from Sunday
- Mitchell Baker kicked off Sunday with a keynote session that offered a thought-provoking exploration of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) in the age of artificial intelligence and demonstrated how Mozilla plays a role in defining principled approach to AI that prioritizes transparency, ethics, and community-driven innovation. It was a perfect opening for the talks that we presented at the Mozilla devroom later that day.
- Around the same time as Mitchell’s session, Mozilla engineer Max Inden also delivered a presentation in the Network devroom, showcasing various techniques the Firefox team uses to enhance Firefox performance.
- Then on the second half on Sunday, we also hosted the Mozilla devroom where we covered a wide range of Mozilla’s latest innovations from Mythbusting to Mozilla’s AI innovations and Firefox developments. Recordings will be available soon at FOSDEM’s website and via our YouTube channel. So stay tuned!
We’re grateful for the enthusiasm, conversations, and curiosity of attendees at FOSDEM 2025. And big thanks to our amazing volunteers and Mozillians for co-hosting our booth and the Mozilla devroom this year.
We sure had a blast, and we can’t wait to see you again next year!