The conference that reignited the dream

Last weekend, I went to FOSSDEM ’26 to enjoy a social circle with likeminded people that build awesome open source software. I also enjoyed drinking lassi for the first time with friends, which they suggested and instantly made me crave more of it.

It felt great to be around people who just understand this passion, and make a living doing what they love. And that made me aware of the dream I still pursue as a software engineer, to eventually reconcile this passion into day-to-day work.

Luckily there were plenty of people sharing how they managed to do it, which reignited this dream of mine to double-down on it.

Oh, and the security talks, they were also great, it is insane how far that technology has come.

Oh, and stickers, can never have too many stickers of the various open source projects, love it!

The trip itself was quite comfortable, I took the international train from Rotterdam to Brussels. It only stopped at Antwerpen, as it was the direct line to Belgium and that saved a lot of time.

And that most people speak French is still funny to me, so I also practised that language a bit.