We are inviting proposals for talks about “FOSS Office Software and Suites“.
Office productivity software is one of the oldest and most interesting FOSS categories packed with developer interest. It is also an area where lots of new solutions are arriving with new desktop, web-based and mobile editors, as well as new underlying libraries and filters appearing. These bring lots of opportunities for meeting up and cross-fertilization of ideas, and innovation as well as code sharing between separate FOSS communities and companies that can rarely come together.
The FOSS Office devroom brings these projects together in one place. It is open to developers, contributors, integrators, and users of any FOSS office suite or component. Competing projects and document toolkits are explicitly welcome, as the aim is to provide an overview of the entire sector and identify common problems which cannot be solved alone.
We invite talks on topics such as:
– Architecture, performance, algorithms, data-structures;
– Network protocols for real-time collaboration;
– Import and export filters, interoperability, and document rendering fidelity;
– Accessibility, localisation, typography and support for complex scripts;
– Technical challenges of enterprise Office deployments
– AI-assisted features and how to integrate them while preserving user control and privacy;
– Security, code quality, hardening and sandboxing challenges;
Talks should be technical, and mention bits, bytes, data-structures and algorithms. Product pitches and business presentations will not be accepted in this room. The devroom is co-organised by people from a handful of different FOSS Office projects to ensure a balanced selection of talks. Talks will be 15/20 minutes maximum, to fit as many as possible in the limited time slots.
TALK SUBMISSIONS
To submit a talk, please visit the FOSDEM 2027 Pretalx website: https://fosdem.org/submit. Please select “FOSS Office” as the *track* and ensure you include all the requested information when submitting a proposal: the title of the talk, a short abstract (one / two paragraphs), and some information about yourself (name, bio and photo). Please do remember that your profile might be already stored in Pretalx.
If you already have a Pretalx account from previous years, please reuse it. Create an account if, and only if, you don’t have one from a previous year. If you have issues with Pretalx, please contact italo at documentfoundation.org for help.
All presentations will be recorded and streamed. Sending your proposal implies giving permission to be recorded.
For accepted talks, speakers will receive an email to confirm that the proposal has been accepted. They may expect additional emails with more instructions, for instance to confirm their travel schedule.
CONTACTS
Italo Vignoli: italo at documentfoundation dot org
Jos Portvliet: jos dot poortvliet at nextcloud dot com
Michael Meeks: michael dot meeks at collabora dot com
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER
Submission Deadline: 30 November 2026 (23:59 UTC)
Acceptance Notifications: 4 December 2026
Final Schedule Announcement: 7 December 2026
Devroom: 30 January 2027 (from 10:30, just half day)