FOSDEM 2026: Thank you for ten years of conversations

Event Feb 19, 2026

As previously announced, the XCP-ng project and XO returned to FOSDEM for the 10th consecutive year, celebrating a decadeof community engagement. The event was an opportunity to connect with users and contributors, showcase demos, and gather feedback from experts to keep improving our virtualization and management solutions.

The stand: demos & highlights

XCP‑ng 9 on AlmaLinux 10
Our booth featured the first XCP‑ng 9 prototype built on AlmaLinux 10. The AlmaLinux team visited, took photos, and expressed genuine enthusiasm for the upstream alignment. Stickers and pens were swapped, reinforcing the partnership vibe 😄

Thanks again to the AlmaLinux team for this cool pen!

Android VM on XCP‑ng
We showcased an Android virtual machine that runs on XCP‑ng and can be accessed from any desktop or mobile device. This was done thanks to WayDroid, LineageOS and PostmarketOS, this VM can be replicated in anyone's homelab using those shared recipes to access remotely any app from any device:

A pmOs visitor managed to log into XO lite from his non android phone, despite a congested Wi‑Fi network, proof that a mobile‑first approach works for privacy‑focused users.

Low‑End SBC Demo
To illustrate the platform’s modest hardware requirements, we ran XCP‑ng on a single‑board computer with just 2 GB of RAM. The community discussion on the forum captured the positive reaction and highlighted the potential for edge deployments.

Xen + Zephyr on Raspberry Pi
The Xen Project team set up a solid demo of Zephyr running on a Raspberry Pi alongside Xen.

The GitHub repository attracted steady interest and sparked practical discussions about constrained, embedded environments.

Open‑Hardware Showcase

Yann from Vates presented his open‑source FPGA‑based USB 3.0 logic analyzer during the FOSDEM 2026 session “SucréLA: open‑source USB 3.0 logic analyzer based on FPGA.”
The presentation slides and the video replay are available through the link above, allowing anyone to revisit the technical details and the shared source code

The preview here underscored the growing relevance of open hardware in the FOSS ecosystem.

Feedback Themes

The conversation has moved past VMware
We arrived with comparison material referencing VMware, but attendees cared far more about differentiating XCP‑ng from KVM‑based stacks and projects like Proxmox. Architecture choices, operational trade‑offs, and long‑term positioning dominated the dialogue, exactly the kind of technical depth FOSDEM audiences expect.

Scaling questions: 8 000 VMs
One visitor asked how we’d handle 8 000 virtual machines in production, not as a theoretical ceiling but as a realistic workload. We should look into that scenario further, maybe shaping it into a community‑led effort to better understand what “large‑scale” actually entails.

ARM, RISC‑V & hardware pressure

RISC‑V stole the spotlight, with a handful of vendors unveiling compact, market‑ready boards, some even equipped with GPUs. Our ARM prototype sparked noticeable interest, especially from a semiconductor engineer keen to tinker despite its known limits.

Today ARM and RISC‑V are no longer fringe experiments; they’re core components of modern infrastructure roadmaps. See the FOSDEM session “Support new boards: Linux, U‑Boot, Yocto” for the full context.

Governance as a technical issue
Multiple sessions highlighted that foundation governance now carries strategic weight. U.S.-based foundations (Linux Foundation, Apache) sit under American jurisdiction, while alternatives like the Eclipse Foundation were discussed as possible mitigations. This shift forces projects to factor legal and geopolitical risk into technical decisions.

Geopolitics of code & sovereignty gaps
Key tensions surfaced: platform chokepoints (GitHub, PyPI), jurisdictional control, under‑investment in critical components, and fragmentation risks (national stacks). The overarching question:

❓

Can open source stay globally cohesive under mounting geopolitical pressure?

The consensus leaned toward “yes, but only with deliberate coordination.”

AI, browsers & execution substrates
During an informal chat with Sylvestre Ledru (Mozilla) we noticed that AI‑native agents were completely missing from the browser panel. If AI agents become the primary way people interact with content, browsers could shift from being mere entry points to becoming full‑blown execution substrates, a plausible direction, even if it’s not imminent.

AI has a huge impact: see the FOSDEM session “The synthetic senior: rethinking free‑software mentorship in the AI era”.

The discussion also touched on the dynamics of open‑source projects and communities and how they might evolve under AI pressure.

GPU‑cloud realities
The “Building Cloud Infrastructure for AI” session (Stelia) reminded us that “GPU cloud” isn’t a monolith. Distinctions among single‑GPU, GPU nodes, and GPU clusters with RDMA matter for NUMA awareness, PCIe topology, and VM isolation. The VM‑first model remains vital for serious AI workloads.

Closing Thoughts

FOSDEM 2026 wasn’t about announcements, it was about concrete demos, sharp questions, and candid conversations. We walk away with a short, actionable list:

Scalability test: prototype a 8 000‑VM deployment.
ARM/RISC‑V deep dive: refine drivers, publish reference designs, and engage the interested semiconductor engineer.
Strengthen upstream ties: continue joint work with AlmaLinux and the Xen Project, leveraging the goodwill generated at the stand.
Monitor governance trends: assess foundation jurisdictional impacts on our roadmap and be ready to adapt if legal pressures shift.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, asked tough questions, and shared insights!

Stay connected

Until FOSDEM 2027, we’re eager to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share feedback wherever you’re most comfortable:

FOSDEM 2026 discussion thread: post comments, questions, or suggestions directly on the forum: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/11778/fosdem-2026
Fediverse: follow and interact with us on our Fediverse instances: