FOSS Backstage 2024

This year’s FOSS Backstage took place on 2024-03-04 and 2024-03-05 at bUm in Berlin, Germany. One Debian Developer and employee of NetApp had the opportunity to attend this conference: Bastian Blank.

FOSS Backstage focuses on the non-coding aspects of Open Source projects. Aspects like governance, how to structure a project, and how to grow your project where talked a lot about. But also legal aspects on licenses choice and license compliance showed up.

Many startups will eventually show up the radar of Venture Capital. While this will make some people wealthy, this is often a turning point for FOSS principles. Melanie Rieback presented the keynote with insight into her successful non-profit security company. A company that can’t be sold to anyone really.

Once in a while, hopefully not too often, it will be necessary to change the structure of a project. For example if the founder of the project and his company suddenly goes away. Ruth Cheesley showed how changing the governance model can work in reality.

Funding is a not so easy, but still important part of every project. Some insights where given by Shane Curcuru about how projects are currently funded, with data he collects and publishes.

All presentations have been recorded and should show up on the YouTube channel of the organizers.