F-Droid goes FrOSCon

FrOSCon 2026 in Sankt Augustin, Germany, was a first for F-Droid as well as for me. It was the first time F-Droid had a booth at FrOSCon, and it was also my first FrOSCon and my first time in Germany. Getting to spend the weekend representing F-Droid there with Sebastian made it particularly special.

Our booth was in a very good spot, between FlorisBoard and Phosh, with Ubuntu Touch nearby and Fedora directly opposite us. We also had postmarketOS nearby. It made for a lively part of the exhibition, with plenty of people moving between the different projects. The people around were especially lovely and were friendly, helpful and easy to talk to, which made the long, very hot days at the booth much easier.

FrOSCon has a strong hardware presence, and there was plenty to see across the exhibition. The Phosh & postmarketOS team were showing their operating systems on different devices, including demonstrations involving Waydroid and Android applications. It was nice having projects working on different parts of the free software mobile ecosystem so close together.

At the F-Droid booth, Sebastian and I spent most of the weekend talking to users.

Many visitors were already using F-Droid and came by to share their experiences or ask questions. Others were completely new to F-Droid, and we were able to help them get started. We came away with a good number of new users, which was one of the most satisfying parts of the weekend.

F-Droid 2.0 was a frequent topic. Several people came with questions or issues they had encountered, sometimes simply showing us what was happening on their phones. Android Developer Verification also generated a lot of discussion, with visitors interested in what it could mean for F-Droid and the future of app distribution on Android.

There was also a surprising amount of curiosity about what happens behind the app. People asked how F-Droid is managed, how we find the resources to keep the project running and how the project is funded. These conversations were particularly useful because they gave us an opportunity to explain some of the work that is less visible to users.

We did not receive donations directly at the booth, but we noticed generous donations arrive through OpenCollective around the time of FrOSCon. While we cannot attribute them with certainty, the timing and the conversations at the event make us confident that FrOSCon helped.

One thing I noticed compared with FOSDEM earlier this year was that FrOSCon gave us more time with individual visitors. FOSDEM has a much larger crowd, but at FrOSCon people could stop for longer and have a proper conversation. For a project like F-Droid, those conversations are valuable.

The heat certainly made the weekend memorable too. It was unusually hot in the region, including at the venue, but the people around us made it considerably easier to get through.

By the end of the weekend, we had met existing F-Droid users, introduced the project to new ones, had some very useful conversations about where F-Droid is heading, and spent a great couple of days with the wider free software community.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the F-Droid booth, asked a question, shared an experience, or simply came over to say hello.

Finally, thank you to the FrOSCon organisers and everyone around us who made F-Droid’s first FrOSCon such a good one.