FOSSCOMM (Free and Open Source Software Communities Meeting) is the largest annual conference on open software and technologies in Greece. Since 2008 it has brought together the Greek community around open software, open content, open data, open design and open licences. Attendance is free and the event is run by volunteers.
2020: a conference without a venue
The 2020 edition was hosted by the University of Western Macedonia, together with the Open Technologies Alliance (ΕΕΛΛΑΚ) and the Regional Directorate of Education of Western Macedonia. The conference was co-organised by our IEEE Student Branch and the Kastoria Linux Society, whose members formed the organising team.
The conference was planned to take place in Kastoria, but the pandemic changed that. On 21–22 November 2020 it ran entirely online, with free registration and live streaming for everyone.
The programme
More than 40 talks and workshops, by speakers from Greece and abroad, were followed by over 1,200 participants. Prof. Angelos Michalas opened the conference on behalf of the organising committee. The talks covered open source in public administration, education and research. Highlights included:
- Evangelos Tsavalopoulos, head of the European Commission’s Open Source Programme Office, on the Commission’s new open source strategy.
- Alexander Sander, EU Policy Manager at the Free Software Foundation Europe, on free software during the pandemic and why publicly funded software should be released under free licences.
- Sivan Pätsch of Open Forum Europe, on the role of open source in public policy.
- Italo Vignoli, founding member of The Document Foundation, on ten years of LibreOffice.
- Diomidis Spinellis, professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business and president of ΕΕΛΛΑΚ, on the Epidose open hardware project.
- Schools awarded in the Panhellenic Competition of Open Technologies in Education presenting their projects.
What we learned
Organising a national conference is very different from attending one. Moving it online in a few weeks meant coordinating speakers, running the streaming infrastructure and moderating sessions remotely — experience that has helped every event we have organised since.
The team
Scientific Committee
- Angelos Michalas — Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Macedonia
- Dimitrios I. Vergados — then Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics, University of Western Macedonia
- Theodoros Mardiris — Regional Director of Primary & Secondary Education of Western Macedonia
- Dimitrios Tzimas — Coordinator of Educational Project for Informatics, Western Macedonia
Organising Committee
- Athanasios Mourtzoukos — Informatics student, University of Western Macedonia
- Georgia Fasoula — Informatics student, University of Western Macedonia
- Dimitra Voutoura — Informatics student, University of Western Macedonia
- Ioannis Loukas — Informatics student, University of Western Macedonia
- Marianna Bosiaka — Informatics student, University of Western Macedonia
- Christos Anastasiou — Informatics student, University of Western Macedonia
- Kleopatra Gkola — MSc student, Advanced Information Technologies and Services
- Christos Hitiris — Computer Scientist, MSc
- Efstathios Iosifidis — openSUSE & GNOME Foundation member
- Konstantinos Papadimas — Content & Community Manager, ΕΕΛΛΑΚ
- Christos Karamolegkos — Systems Administrator, ΕΕΛΛΑΚ
Links
- Conference website: https://2020.fosscomm.gr/
- Press release: https://cs.uowm.gr/fosscomm-2020-deltio-typoy/
- Event listing: https://www.foss.events/2020/11-21-fosscomm.html
- Talks on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Fosscomm-xf9sz