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FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels is a smashing success. As you remember we have a shared devroom together with the BSD projects. So far it seems we are one of the few devrooms who have a full schedule for both days - some other projects (who particulary got a bigger devroom) only had talks for one day or worse.

Anyway, we had many visitors in our devroom, for some talks the audience even had to use standing places. The talks are scheduled on a rotating basis so most of the time we have one PostgreSQL talk followed by a BSD talk. Some talks even overlap thematically a bit, BSD folks is using PostgreSQL in some tests or projects and vice versa. With the rotating scheme we have many visitors from both groups who not just attend one specific talk but instead stay for one or two extra talks.

We also have a booth which is attracting a lot visitors too. Many people come around, ask questions or tell us how they are using PostgreSQL. Oh, we also have some interesting stuff to give away or to sell. Gabriele brought flyers and pens from italy, Gevik sponsored a carton with anti-stress balls with PG logo on it, Magnus brought live-cds, supplied by Robert and Koen made suitable labels. David had nice new pins in his luggage and one should not forget the blue plush elefants - this time we also have a pair of bigger parent elephants. Always remember, you need two elephants for replication ;-)

Later today we try to auctioneer one of the big elephants, there was some interest in the last days. Actually we don't have any small elephants anymore, most of them (23 out of 25) are already bought by visitors yesterday. Instead of the last talk, which usually does not get many attention by visitors (most people are already heading home at this time), we want to hold our election for the EU group board of directors.

We keep you informed.

Talk schedule will follow the next time, but if you have a nice PG-related talk you want to give, please let us know at fosdem@pgug.eu.

Judging last and this years visitors, the LD seems to be back in business, so i recommend to be present in 2008.

The different BSD groups want to organize some more presence and have asked, if we want to join them in something like "BSD use cases". Sounds interesting to me, also because the BSD groups did a great job with flyer sponsoring (they have some really good PostgreSQL flyers available) in the past and helped out from time to time, if we had to leave the booth for a short time. The BSD people have the same problem as the PostgreSQL people: it seems, that many companies are using PostgreSQL. But since the BSD license does not require to publish the source or even tell the customer, what OS/database is used, almost nobody knows about BSD/PostgreSQL. Why do we know? From time to time, this companies have a problem they cannot solve and then they are asking in a forum, on a mailinglist or even on IRC. But we should not wait until problems appear, if we want to know about the PostgreSQL usage in companies.

GIS is a very hot theme: the freeGIS group was present, flightgear is using PG and GIS for storing map data. Intevation GmbH is providing GIS solutions and support for authorities.