FreeCAD News

It’s hap­pen­ing again! FOSDEM 2025 has been announced and, like the pre­vi­ous years, the FPA are thrilled to organ­ise once again our world-famous FreeCAD events. These will take place in Brus­sels, from Jan­u­ary 28^th to Feb­ru­ary the 2^nd 2025, togeth­er with FOSDEM. Be ready for sev­er­al days full of cod­ing, open-source­ness and fun!

This year, we will once again do the event togeth­er with our friends from KiCAD, and we’re prepar­ing even more stuff for devel­op­ers of both projects to have a look at the oth­er side of the mir­ror. Let’s see what crazy joint ideas can come to life…

This is what we’ve pre­pared for you (so far):

Tuesday, 28 January 2025: FreeCAD hackathon at HSBXL

9h00 to 17h00, Brus­sels hack­er­space, Brus­sels

The Brus­sels Hack­er­space (cau­tion, it has changed loca­tion since last year!) will host FreeCAD for a day, where we can meet, code, exchange ideas. This is open to every­one, please check the hack­er­space web­site for direc­tions and details.

Wednesday, 29 January 2025: FreeCAD hackathon

9h00 to 17h00, Ate­lier des tan­neurs, Brus­sels

A full day of hack­ing, cod­ing and dis­cus­sions with FreeCAD devel­op­ers. This year, we will be doing the hackathon at Ate­lier des Tan­neurs. Please reg­is­ter if you intend to come (no prob­lem if you change your mind lat­er, it’s most­ly so we can get an idea of how many peo­ple will be there). Bring your com­put­er and your ideas!

There will be coffee/juice/snacks dur­ing the day, and there are many food options around the venue.

Thursday, 30 January 2025: KiCAD and FreeCAD hackathon

9h00 to 17h00, Ate­lier des tan­neurs, Brus­sels

Anoth­er day of hack­ing, cod­ing and dis­cussing with FreeCAD and KiCAD devel­op­ers. Each project will have its own ded­i­cat­ed room, but there will be plen­ty of space for peo­ple from both com­mu­ni­ties to dis­cuss ideas togeth­er. That day, we will have a FreeCAD for KiCAD devel­op­ers and a KiCAD for FreeCAD devel­op­ers ses­sions, to explain briefly to devel­op­ers of each project how the oth­er works, how the code works, where to start hack­ing, etc. Please reg­is­ter if you intent to par­tic­i­pate to that day.

There will be coffee/juice/snacks dur­ing the day, and there are many food options around the venue.

Friday, 31 January 2025: KiCAD and FreeCAD day

9h00 to 17h00, Ate­lier des tan­neurs, Brus­sels

This day is open to pub­lic, no reg­is­tra­tion nec­es­sary. So please spread the word! The day will be packed of pre­sen­ta­tions from FreeCAD and KiCAD com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. On the FreeCAD side, as pre­vi­ous years, the event will be organ­ised as an uncon­fer­ence: Par­tic­i­pants will­ing to dis­cuss a top­ic or present some­thing (max 15 min­utes please!) can write their idea on a post-it note when arriv­ing, and these will be arranged (and re-arranged) on time sheet dur­ing the day.

There will be t‑shirts for sale, good­ies to grab, and a lot of FreeCAD fun. There will be coffee/juice/snacks dur­ing the day, and there are many food options around the venue.

Saturday 01 February 2025: Restaurant night

19h00 (to be con­firmed), Volle Gas, Brus­sels

At night we will gath­er togeth­er with KiCAD in a Brus­sels restau­rant. There are veg­e­tar­i­an options avail­able. Please reg­is­ter if you wish to come, so we can book ade­quate space.

Saturday and Sunday, 01–02 February 2025: FOSDEM

9h00 to 18h00, Brus­sels uni­ver­si­ty, Sol­bosch cam­pus, Brus­sels

FOSDEM is a world-famous 2‑day open-source devel­op­ers meet­ing hap­pen­ing every year in Brus­sels. It brings FOSS devel­op­ers from all around the world for an intense week-end packed with con­fer­ences, dis­cov­er­ies, talks, dis­cus­sions, net­work­ing, and more. FOSDEM is free to attend, no reg­is­tra­tion nec­es­sary. Be sure to browse their site to dis­cov­er every­thing the event has to offer, and pick your favourites. On Sun­day, there will be an Open Hard­ware and CAD/CAM ded­i­cat­ed room, where we will cer­tain­ly have a cou­ple of FreeCAD-relat­ed talks, and many more that should inter­est FreeCAD devel­op­ers and users. If you plan to pro­pose a talk, be sure to sub­mit it here before 1 Decem­ber 2024.

FreeCAD and KiCAD will also hold a stand at FOSDEM (exact loca­tion to be con­firmed), where peo­ple from the two projects (plus any pos­si­ble oth­er guest star project) will be avail­able to dis­cuss and show­case the projects, and there will be good­ies to grab and swag to buy.

Practical info

• Like pre­vi­ous years, trav­el fund­ing is avail­able to help devel­op­ers to come to the event. Be sure to read the rules to apply. Train/bus trav­el is pre­ferred, when possible.
• There will be no food offered dur­ing the events, but the Ate­lier des Tan­neurs is in a live­ly part of the city full with bars, fri­etkots, take-away places and restau­rants close by. Typ­i­cal­ly, we stop for half an hour or an hour dur­ing the day to grab some­thing to eat. At FOSDEM, there are many restau­rants and food trucks right on the campus.
• Brus­sels can be cold in Feb­ru­ary. If you are lucky, you will get cloudy (pos­si­bly rainy) days with tem­per­a­tures around 0 to +5˚C. If unlucky, you could get some­thing as low as ‑10˚C.
• If you don’t know Brus­sels yet, half a day or a day suf­fice to get a good tour of the city. We will pre­pare some self-ser­vice tour options lat­er on.

That’s it for now, we are thrilled to make this incred­i­ble event hap­pen­ing once again. See you there?