Virtual Conferences — Completely Open-Source
Like any other conference on this planet, we faced the same issues: We had to move our conference into the virtual space. We, the Open-Source Firmware Conference, are running an annual conference which — obviously — under normal circumstances would run in person and not virtual. And we do care about open-source. And we like to share our path to a fully open-source conference.
How it started
Everything started in Mid 2020 — we had to make the discussion. We planned a four-day conference in South Korea. We already had Rooms, Hotels, and Food ready. Flyers were printed and all the other Swag was already planned. And then it hit us — either we had to cancel the conference in general, or get up a virtual conference within four months.
We decided to go for a virtual conference. We searched for tools that are made to host virtual conferences. We found hopin.com — it is basically the core of the conference system containing the stages, streams, booths, and the ticketing system. Even though it was not perfect, the team at hopin was very helpful and we managed to pull it off. We had some technical issues here and there, but the overall experience was good.
However, we did not felt satisfied with this solution. Everything was closed-source and not as open as we wanted it to be. So we moved on…
