FOSDEM 2024
Last month I went to Brussels for FOSDEM, for the first time since 2020. While I didn’t go to many talks, I was able to connect with many people there, from WriteFreely users to old friends to many new people I met along the way.
Some highlights
I first connected with @laurenshof@indieweb.social of the Fediverse Report. He shared some great insights about publishing long-form content on the fediverse, and what works or not. Our conversation gave me a new perspective on it all, and got me thinking a lot about what’s most important as I build better fediverse support into WriteFreely and Write.as.
I met some of the Mastodon team, including @andypiper@macaw.social, and talked about how other fediverse platforms might better support long-form content. I’m now looped in a little better with development on their end, both as an application developer and Mastodon instance admin.
I also chatted with @kushal@toots.dgplug.org about WriteFreely. It was so nice meeting, and hearing how the software has worked well for everything he’s doing. The chat also helped me prioritize some missing features.
Finally, I met @thorgal@indieweb.social, who builds a really neat platform called Readup. It’s a very cool social way to read on the web — I’d highly recommend checking it out! Here, again our conversation turned to the fediverse, and ways that non-microblogging platforms might interact over ActivityPub.
Some takeaways
The weekend was really a blur — there are many other great people I met, reconnected with, and had great conversations with. But overall it was refreshing to see people in real life and chat over drinks or music, in a city I always love coming back to.
Especially after all this time away from major WriteFreely development, it got me excited about ramping it up again this year, collaborating with more people, and seeing what we can all build together.
Thoughts? Discuss... or reply to @matt@writing.exchange.