News
We need your help to make the 14th edition of SeaGL the best conference that it can possibly be! The SeaGL 2026 Call for Presentations (CfP) is now open, and we want to hear your talk ideas. You have until May 31, 2026 at 23:59 Pacific Daylight Time to submit. Please don’t delay; submit early, submit often!
We’re a small community-focused event which aims to bring together new and experienced open source hobbyists. Our audience includes university students, security professionals, software engineers, technical writers, and open source contributors across a wide range of disciplines.
We welcome introductions to free/libre/open (FLO) software, hardware, and tools, as well as more technical deep-dives. In addition to technical talks, we invite presentations on FLOSS alternatives to proprietary products, hacking for good, personal security and privacy, and open source in non-tech domains such as education and art.
We do not accept sponsored talks. If your company wants to get involved, you can find more information on our sponsorship page.
This year’s Program Committee is run by Dina Buric and Dawn Cooper.
Keynote nominations
We also need your help to find our 2026 keynote speakers! We have four keynote speakers each year, and have done since 2018. Two slots are reserved for people with previous keynote speaking experience. The other two slots are for first-time keynoters.
Our keynote speakers are generally well-known in the open source community. They may be involved with community organising, contribute to free software, or use open source products in innovative ways. If that sounds like you, or someone you know, please submit their name to our keynote suggestion form.
Once the submission form has closed for the year, our volunteers vote on the submitted names and send out invites to our top choices. If you want to be part of that process, please consider joining our volunteer team!
Spread the word
Don’t have a talk idea, but still want to help?
- Share our CfP at your workplace and in community groups. The more the merrier!
- If you know someone who might make a good keynote speaker, share their name with us.
- Tell your friends about SeaGL, and ask them to tell their friends!
- Distribute our flyers in shared spaces and on bulletin boards.
- Share our sponsorship page with projects and companies that may be interested in partnering with us.
SeaGL wouldn’t exist without our community, and we greatly appreciate your help in promoting our event.
Remember to submit early and often, and watch our blog for more updates. We hope to see you at SeaGL 2026!
SeaGL 2026 is coming together nicely, and we have a handful of exciting updates to share with the community! 🎉
Help us choose our keynote speakers
🔑 Keynote speakers are a vital part of our conference and we’d love the SeaGL community’s help finding voices to highlight on the main stage! If you’re an attendee, past speaker, volunteer, or simply someone who cares about free/libre/open values, we’d really appreciate your suggestion of someone who would make a meaningful and inspiring keynote speaker at an upcoming SeaGL.
Consider nominating people whose work you admire, who have engaged in advocacy that has made a difference, or those that hold a perspective you think would challenge and energize an audience of free and open source enthusiasts.
Note that we reserve two of the four keynote positions for those who rarely, if ever, have been invited to the main stage. Nominees do not need to be widely known; they just need to have a passion that they want to share with the FLOSS community and a connection to the values that SeaGL is built on.
Please fill out our Keynote Nomination Form to submit your suggestions today!
Although this form is open year-round, the SeaGL organizing team will be considering all nominations submitted by April 26th for this year’s event. 🗓️
Find us at LinuxFest Northwest
🐧 The SeaGL team will be on the ground with a booth at LinuxFest Northwest on April 25 & 26. If you are there too, please stop by and give us a squak!
This is an excellent opportunity to meet some of the people who bring SeaGL together year after year. Feel encouraged to ask questions about how the conference works, find out how to get involved, or simply spend a few minutes talking about the free/libre and open source tools we all care about.
Community events like LinuxFest Northwest are a big part of what keeps the FLOSS ecosystem vibrant, and we are glad to be a part of it. 💚
Call for Proposals opens April 24th
📢 If you have a talk, workshop, or session idea that you have been sitting on, now is the time to dust it off and polish it up: the SeaGL 2026 Call for Proposals opens on April 24th!
SeaGL welcomes speakers at every level of experience, from folks sharing something publicly for the very first time to seasoned presenters with years of stage time behind them. If you have something to share, we want to see your proposal.
Full details about the CfP process, including topics, formats, and submission guidelines, will be shared when it launches. We encourage you to start thinking about what you know, what you are passionate about, and what you think the SeaGL community would benefit from hearing. We cannot wait to see what you submit! 🚀
Keep in touch
🫂 There is plenty more news on the way as SeaGL 2026 takes shape. Follow us on social media and keep an eye on our website for updates on the CfP, the program, and everything else we have in store for our community.
If you are interested in volunteering or getting more involved with the organizing effort, visit our Get Involved page or fill out our Volunteer Application Form. We’d love to have you join the gullery!
As always, thank you for being part of what makes SeaGL a welcoming space that bridges experiences and strengthens the free software movement! 🐦
SeaGL runs on volunteer energy, shared effort, and a lot of care; and we are looking for more organizers to help bring SeaGL 2026 to life! If you have been thinking about lending a wing, our biggest need right now is for coordinators on three committees: Attendee Experience, IDEA, and Policy & Protocol.
Coordinator openings
Each SeaGL committee benefits from having coordinators who keep work moving, organize meetings, recruit helpers, and make sure important details do not get dropped. You do not need to be an expert in every part of the committee’s work to help coordinate it.
- Attendee Experience (AX): This committee focuses on the day-of-event experience for attendees. That includes details like exhibitor maps, room flow, coffee breaks, snacks, signs, and the many small things which help the conference feel welcoming and well organized.
- IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access): This committee helps SeaGL stay inclusive and accessible. Its work supports a conference where people feel welcome, represented, and able to participate fully.
- Policy & Protocol: This committee reviews and maintains key policies for attendees and presenters, including the Code of Conduct and Health & Safety Policy.
Volunteers wanted across SeaGL
We are also looking for volunteers across our other committees. If you want to offer your assistance but coordinating is not the right fit, there are still plenty of ways to get involved!
- Partnerships: Help SeaGL connect with organizations that may want to support the conference as sponsors or community partners.
- A/V (Audio and Video): Help prepare the audio and video setup needed for presentations and other event spaces.
- DevOps: Help support the technical infrastructure behind the conference, including the systems and tooling that keep things running.
- Promotion & Outreach: Help spread the word about SeaGL across social media, physical spaces, and beyond. We especially need people with design skills who can create posters, graphics, and other digital assets.
You can read more about SeaGL’s committee structure on our Get Involved page.
Get in touch
If you are interested, please fill out our volunteer application form, reach out on Matrix, or send an e-mail to participate@seagl.org. If you are not sure where you fit yet, that is fine, we are happy to help you find a committee that matches your interests and skills.
Thank you for being a part of the SeaGL community. We couldn’t do this without you!
Welcome to the thirteenth year of our free—as in freedom and tea—grassroots technical summit!
Below are a variety of details regarding how to attend, what’s on the schedule, and where you can help. Please take a moment to read and share!
How to Attend
You can join us in-person on the University of Washington campus at the Husky Union Building (known as the HUB). Those not in Seattle, or otherwise occupied, are encouraged to participate remotely via Matrix.
As always, both options are free/gratis and registration is optional—just show up! However, this year we are providing an option to register without identifying yourself, which helps us estimate attendance.
Do note that all staff, presenters, and attendees of SeaGL are expected to obey the Code of Conduct not only at SeaGL but also in all SeaGL-associated spaces including but not limited to associated social events and virtual channels.
In-person attendees are also expected to obey the Health and Safety Policy for the duration of the conference. This includes requiring masks inside some but not all presentation rooms and encouraging them in other areas. If you don’t have your own we are providing them gratis.
Schedule
Each day of SeaGL will be packed full, with doors opening at 8am Pacific Time (PT) (16:00 UTC). There will be two keynote presentation per day at 9am PT (17:00 UTC), followed by over 40 presentations until 6pm PT (02:00 UTC).
For those attending in-person, on Friday Ada’s will be hosting an on-site Tech Book Sale running from 1:30pm to 4:00pm PT. On Saturday Resist Tech Monopolies will be hosting a DiscoTech from 1pm to 4:30pm PT where you can bring your devices and discover surviellance-free FLOSS tech alternatives. Additionally, each afternoon the Tea Tavern will host a tea break (TeaGL) at 3:30pm PT in the Expo Hall.
Friday night’s social will be at Ada’s Technical Books & Cafe beginning at 6:30pm PT and a cash bar will be available. There will be a live jazz band starting at 7:30pm PT, with pizza arriving shortly thereafter. The evening will end with a fundraiser auction for Seattle Community Network.
Saturday night’s social will begin with an hour long security mixer and keysigning party at 6:00pm PT, transitioning to Big Time Brewery & Alehouse which is walking distance from the event at 7:00pm PT.
Additional detail can be found in the schedule.
Please note, both of the evening socials have a capacity of approximately 80 people. If you find it too crowded, check-out the Hallway Matrix room to connect with other attendees who may be flocking to nearby venues.
We encourage everyone to get together, chat, and just generally share their SeaGL experiences. After all, people are the best part of Free Software.
If you share anything on your social network of choice, please use the #SeaGL2025 hashtag so everyone can follow along. You can also follow us on or for announcements and updates.
Volunteering
Don’t forget, SeaGL is a 100% volunteer run conference and we are always looking for more help! If you are interested in helping out during the event, please fill out our volunteer form.
Here are some of the at-event positions we’re looking for more help with:
- Room Monitors: introduce speakers (with their permission), perform room head counts, make sure speakers have everything they need, and ensure sessions run smoothly and finish on time.
- Sign-Wranglers: post up and take down signs in and around venue.
- Refreshment Aides: help with the set up, tear down, and clean up of coffee and tea breaks.
- Information Attendants: register attendees (if they want), check-in speakers and exhibitors, hand out programs, and provide directions and answers to questions.
- Virtual Hosts: keep an eye on the Matrix channels, identify content in need of moderation, reach out to in-person staff as needed.
We are also excited to welcome year-round volunteers who would like to continue helping out after the conference. If you’re interested in joining the flock, please reach out via Matrix or email.
See You Soon
That’s all for now. We hope to see you at SeaGL today, tomorrow, or in the not-too-distant future!
SeaGL tea-lovers rejoice, we are bringing back the TeaGL tea swap this year! Sign-ups are now open and will close on Friday, October 31st. The swap itself will take place during the afternoon TeaGL break on Saturday, just as people’s adrenaline is wearing thin from two straight days of talks and FLOSS fun. However, we welcome everyone to gather during the TeaGL break both days to enjoy a nice hot cuppa.
If you would like to participate in the tea swap, fill out this form and we will contact you before the event with details about your TeaGL buddy’s preferences. If you would prefer anonymi-tea, you can choose to keep your name private from your trade buddy.
We’re so excited to share this SeaGL tradition and all the keeping calm it entails!
We’re turning over our cards and revealing the schedule for SeaGL 2025!
While there may be some shuffling over the next week or so, you can find the full deck at:
https://seagl.org/schedule
With that, we hope to see you Friday, November 7th & Saturday, November 8th for SeaGL 2025, both virtually and in-person at the University of Washington!
As always, SeaGL is completely free to attend and no registration is required. However, if you would like to let us know that you’re coming, please fill out this brief attendance form. Also, if your company would like help to keep SeaGL’s mission going, we have a limited number of exhibition hall spots and would welcome their support. Reach out to sponsor@seagl.org for more details.
All speakers, sponsors, volunteers, staff, and anyone else involved in SeaGL are required to abide by the Code of Conduct, as well as the Health and Safety Policy.
Keynote Details
Both Friday and Saturday will begin with keynotes at 9am in Room 145 at the University of Washington HUB.
They will also be streamed live online for our remote attendees!
Evan Prodromou presents: “Free the Social Web”
Friday, November 7th, 2025. 9:10 am
As Free and Open Source Software enthusiasts, we sometimes concentrate on our own experiences with software, hardware and data. But in the world of social networks, our own computing is deeply intertwined with that of our friends and family, colleagues and neighbours. Open Web standards let us stay connected to people that matter to us while using and building free, private, and technically enhanced systems. And we might even change some hearts and minds along the way!
About the speaker: Evan Prodromou, @evan@cosocial.ca, he is the Research Director at the Social Web Foundation, where he helps develop and promote the ActivityPub standard.
Nadya Peek presents: “Challenges When Building Open Source Hardware”
Friday, November 7th, 2025. 9:40 am
Manufacturing hardware (devices, machines, objects) is a challenging task. High-volume sales can offset costs of production, but niche products struggle with viability. Distributed production of open source designs—having people build their own niche products—is a possible alternative.
In this talk, I will describe how digital fabrication like 3D printing, CNC milling, etc. can be used for distributed production and contrast that approach with centralized production. Through example open source hardware projects I will highlight design features that work well and less well, how community support is crucial for replication, and give recommendations for how to make more distributed production possible.
About the speaker: Nadya Peek, https://www.hcde.washington.edu/peek/, is an associate professor in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington.
Saturday, November 8th, 2025. 9:10 am
The Seattle Community Network is a volunteer-based, grassroots, nonprofit community ISP with a small operating budget (currently averaging $10-$50K in grants, donations, or in-kind contributions per year) that installs and provides internet access for homeless shelters; the services we provide to our users is critical infrastructure for their daily lives. This talk discusses some of the core operational challenges we face, the software infrastructure we use to meet those challenges, and its limitations.
About the speaker: Esther Jang, https://estherjang.com/, she is the Director at the Local Connectivity Lab and founded the Seattle Community Network.
Allison Randal presents: “The River Has Roots: Lessons in Open Source”
Saturday, November 8th, 2025. 9:40 am
Open Source is software, hardware, a community, a development methodology, a resource, a charity, a business, a philosophy, and more than the sum of its parts. This reflection on decades of engagement in free and open source software and open hardware mixes a dash of history with an ounce of hope for the future.
About the speaker: Allison Randal, @allison@muon.social, is a free software and open hardware developer and the chair of the board at Software Freedom Conservancy.
Thank you to all who submitted a proposal for SeaGL 2025! We’re so delighted at the caliber of ideas we received this year!
Looking Ahead
The Programming & Flow Committee has begun the review process, with evaluations continuing through mid-August. We plan to notify all proposers of their proposal status by the beginning of September.
- August 1st - August 15th: Reviewers vote on proposals asynchronously
- August 15th - September 1st: Reviewers meet to decide which presentations are accepted
- September 1st: - Speakers are notified via email
Track Breakdown
Here is a peek behind the curtain at the distribution of topics proposed this year. In total, there were 90 submissions with the following counts for each track:
- Cloud and Infrastructure (27)
- Languages and Tools (14)
- Open-source AI and Data Science (10)
- Community and Culture (8)
- Systems and Platforms (8)
- Security and Privacy (7)
- Open-source Careers (6)
- Education (5)
- Performance Art (2)
- Everything Else (2)
- Hardware (1)
Although Cloud and Dev tools led the way, part of SeaGL’s magic is made by the wide diversity of ideas shared. From hard-hitting security deep dives to whimsical explorations of performance art; we enjoy hosting a collaborative mix spanning the practical, the social, and the creative!
Mask Policy
The SeaGL team continues to take health and safety concerns seriously and we are proud of our community’s care for one another. This year we asked for speaker preferences and with only 3 out of 90 proposals requesting a masked room, we’ve decided to lift our mandatory room masking requirement. However, we will continue to support sessions where the speaker request masks and we will continue to provide masks to anyone requesting them.
Details can be found on the health and safety policy page of our website. Please note that we will continue to monitor risk levels. Any policy updates that we publish before the event will not be less-restrictive.
FOSSY
SeaGL will be at the third annual Free and Open Source Software Yearly (FOSSY) conference in Portland, OR this year. If you’ll be at the event anytime between July 31st and August 3rd, please be sure to stop by our booth and say hello!
Happy Friday the 13th! We are thrilled to announce our keynote speakers for the 13th Seattle GNU/Linux Conference:
Esther Jang
Esther is a newly graduated PhD turned postdoc in Computer Science at the University of Washington. She is the Director at the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Local Connectivity Lab (LCL). She founded the Seattle Community Network (SCN) in 2019, building DIY Internet infrastructure for digital equity. She has installed community networks in the US and around the world, and teaches technical networking at the Tribal Broadband Bootcamp (TBB).
Esther’s projects tend to center around DIY, empowerment, and pedagogy. For example- building communities of practice to sustain technical infrastructures, and vice versa.
Find more about Esther on:
Nadya Peek
Dr. Nadya Peek is an associate professor in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington where she directs the Machine Agency. Her work focuses on unconventional digital fabrication tools, small scale automation, networked control systems, and advanced manufacturing. Spanning electronics, firmware, software, and mechanics, her research focuses on harnessing the precision of machines for the creativity of individuals.
Before joining the HCDE faculty in February 2018, Peek was a postdoctoral research scientist at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. She is VP of the Open Source Hardware Association, half of the design studio James and the Giant Peek, and plays drum machines and synths in the band Construction.
Find more about Nadya on:
Evan Prodromou
Originally based in San Francisco, hacker and entrepreneur Evan Prodromou now lives in Montreal where he is the Director of Open Technology at Open Earth Foundation (https://openearth.org/), a non-profit organization that makes Open Source software to fight climate change. He leads a team of full-stack engineers, data engineers and AI apps engineers to make climate intelligence and climate action available to all cities.
A passionate advocate of Open Source and Open Content, Evan is best known for founding the Free travel guide project, Wikitravel. He is the Chair of the W3C Social Web Working Group and the author of ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web (O’Reilly Media). Evan has also been an active member of Open Source projects like MediaWiki, Freenet, and Debian GNU/Linux.
Find more about Evan on:
Allison Randal
Dr. Allison Randal is a free software and open hardware developer and strategist. She is chair of the board at Software Freedom Conservancy, board member at LLVM Foundation, governing board member at CHERI Alliance and OpenInfra Foundation, and co-founder of the FLOSS Foundations group.
In the past three decades, she has served as president of Open Source Initiative, board chair at OpenInfra Foundation, president at Perl Foundation, board member at Python Software Foundation, board chair at Parrot Foundation, and technical architect of Ubuntu. She collaborates in the Debian, RISC-V, and CHERI projects, has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and currently works on Linux and open hardware at Capabilities Limited.
Find more about Allison on:
CfP extended thru June 30th
We are pleased to announce an extension of this year’s Call for Presentations! To ensure a broad and inclusive range of voices, we are keeping the submission portal open until June 30th.
If you’ve been considering submitting a talk, workshop, or performance, you now have a couple more weeks to send in your proposal! Please don’t delay; submit early, submit often!
Our Call for Presentations (CfP) has officially opened! As announced last week during the 25th LinuxFest Northwest, our CfP will remain open until June 15, 2025. Please don’t delay; submit early, submit often!
As a small community event, our attendees tend to be university students, open-source hobbyists, engineers, security professionals, technical writers, and more, with a focus on community rather than corporate involvement.
We welcome introductions to free/libre/open (FLO) software, hardware, and tools, as well as more technical deep-dives. In addition to technical talks, we invite presentations on FLOSS alternatives to proprietary products, hacking for good, personal security and privacy, and open source in non-tech domains such as education and art.
Please note that we are not looking for sponsored talks. However, companies may review our sponsorship prospectus for details on how to participate through other means.
Updates for 2025
This year, we have updated one of our tracks. “Big Data and Machine Learning” felt somewhat outdated, so it has been split into two separate categories:
- Open Source AI and Data Science: Explore the interplay between AI, data, and free/libre/open-source licensing. This topic includes ML frameworks, data tools, MLOps solutions, or open datasets. We’re interested in everything from technical deep dives to big-picture perspectives.
- Cloud and Infrastructure: This category focuses on the systems that power computing environments. Topics include core infrastructure, both physical and virtual, such as servers, networks, and databases. It also covers cloud computing services, spanning everything from infrastructure and deployment to monitoring and telemetry.
For details on all our available tracks and to submit your application(s), please visit: https://seagl.org/cfp
Office Hours are back
SeaGL strives to be welcoming for first time (and veteran) speakers. Part of how we support this mission is by providing an opportunity for prospective speakers to receive real time assistance with their talks and/or CfP submissions.
Are you unsure which of your two talk ideas to submit (hint: submit both!)? Do you need help crafting an abstract for your talk? Or perhaps you are interested in adapting a talk you’ve presented before so that it fits SeaGL’s theme. We will have members of the SeaGL Programming & Flow Committee on hand to help answer these and any other questions you might have.
Office Hours will be taking place via chat on Matrix (#office-hours:seagl.org) at the following times throughout of CfP dates (this list will be updated if more windows open):
- Mondays, 6-7pm PT (Tuesdays 01:00-02:00 UTC)
If none of the office hours time slots fit your schedule, or if you prefer to interact asynchronously, please email your questions to cfp2025@seagl.org.
About Keynotes
We’ve had some question about the keynote selection process that begins much earlier in the year. To clarify, anyone can submit a nomination via this form which is open year-round. We encourage you to take a look and submit anyone you would like to see keynote at SeaGL next year!
Since 2018, we’ve had four spots available for keynoters. Two are reserved for experienced keynoters, notable individuals from academia or industry who have given keynotes before. The other two spots are for first-time keynoters, notable community members who have given talks in the past but have never had the opportunity to keynote.
Candidates are invited after the current staff volunteers participate in a STAR voting poll. If you want to be part of that process, consider joining our volunteer team!
Spread the word
Another way to help our community would be by getting the word out, about the CfP and SeaGL in general. If you have a bulletin board, lunchroom, or other shared space at your office or community spot, please consider distributing some of our fliers. Also, we are still looking for partners, both fiscal and community. If you think your workplace or project would be interested, please share our prospectus. All contributions toward promoting the event are greatly appreciated!
That’s all for this update. Thanks for reading, and remember to submit early and submit often!
We are thrilled to announce that last year’s conference videos are now available on the SeaGL Archive! They can also be accessed directly via our Internet Archive collection. This release marks a significant achievement for our volunteer-run organization, and we couldn’t be more excited to share these valuable resources with the free / libre / open source community.
As a volunteer-driven conference, we rely on the dedication and hard work of our team members. Sometimes this means that tasks take longer to complete than we’d like. In this case, we had a single person working tirelessly behind the scenes. We are extremely grateful for their efforts and appreciate your patience.
A special shout-out to the Internet Archive for hosting our video archives. Their platform has allowed us to share the vast wealth of knowledge created by our community, and for that, we are incredibly thankful.
Regrettably, we encountered some technical issues during last year’s conference which resulted in a couple of videos not being recorded properly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate the understanding of our attendees and speakers.
We are committed to learning from these experiences and improving our processes. We’ve already begun addressing last year’s issues to ensure that all presentations are cleanly captured and made available for everyone to enjoy.
Looking ahead, we’re excited to announce that the Call for Presentations (CfP) for SeaGL 2025 will be opening soon. If you’re interested in sharing your knowledge and expertise with the FLO community, stay tuned for the CfP announcement. As usual, we welcome submissions from industry experts and enthusiasts alike. We can’t wait to see what exciting topics and ideas you’ll be sharing with us!
Once again, thank you to our volunteers, the Internet Archive, and everyone who attended SeaGL last year. Your support and participation are what make this conference possible, and we’re honored to be a part of such a thoughtful community!