FrOSCon 2026: Germany, F-Droid and a Very Hot Weekend

Germany had been a dream for me for a long time, and this year I finally made it there. It was my first time in Germany and also my first FrOSCon, and I was there with Sebastian representing F-Droid.

I had already attended FOSDEM in Belgium earlier this year, so I had something to compare it with. FrOSCon had less footfall than FOSDEM, but I actually found the experience at our booth much better. There was more time to talk to people, and that made a big difference.

The journey from Pune to Frankfurt was with Air India, and the food was, honestly, pathetic. As a pure vegetarian, and particularly when you are looking for Jain food, there was very little I could eat. This was the case on both journeys. I mostly survived on bread and tea. Once I was in Germany, ALDI was a saviour for me. Being able to walk into a supermarket and find food I could actually eat made life much easier.

The weather was another story.

It was extremely hot during those days. The temperatures around Bonn and Cologne went up to nearly 38°C, and even during FrOSCon it was still very hot. There was also the wildfire in Belgium at the time, with the heat and dry conditions making things worse. Our hotel, Hotel Europa, was being renovated and had no air conditioning either. They gave us a pedestal fan, but it was still way too hot.

Thankfully, the journey to the venue was much nicer. It took around 30 minutes from the hotel, and the countryside views were splendid. Since it was my first time in Germany, I enjoyed simply looking outside during the drive.

Then there was FrOSCon.

Our F-Droid booth was between FlorisBoard and Phosh, with Ubuntu Touch nearby and Fedora directly opposite us. The people around us were genuinely lovely. In particular, the people from Phosh and FlorisBoard were so human and easy to be around that they made the long hours at the booth much easier for me, especially with the heat.

There was plenty happening around the booths too. FrOSCon has a strong hardware presence, and there were lots of interesting projects and devices around the exhibition. The Phosh team were showing Phosh running on different devices and demonstrating things such as Android applications through Waydroid, so there was plenty to talk about whenever we had a moment.

Our F-Droid booth stayed busy. We had many people who were already using F-Droid, as well as plenty who were discovering it for the first time. We had good conversations about F-Droid 2.0.x, Android Developer Verification and what people can expect from F-Droid in the future. Some people came with problems they were having and simply showed us what was happening on their phones. Others wanted to know how we manage the project, where our resources come from and how we get funding.

We also came away with quite a few new F-Droid users.

We did not receive donations directly at the booth, but we noticed a couple of donations through Open Collective during the event. Given the timing, we are quite sure FrOSCon contributed to those.

What I liked most was simply having the time to talk. FOSDEM was much larger and had much more footfall, but FrOSCon felt more relaxed from the point of view of our booth. People could stop, ask questions and actually have a conversation instead of immediately having to move on.

There were moments during the trip when I would just stop and think that I was actually in Germany. I had wanted to visit the country for a long time, so being there for the first time, and doing it while representing F-Droid at FrOSCon, made the whole experience even more special.

Of course, I will remember the less pleasant parts too. The heat, the hotel without air conditioning, the Air India food and living on bread and tea for much of the journey are all part of the story. But they sit alongside much nicer memories: the countryside on the way to the venue, the people around our booth, the conversations with existing F-Droid users, meeting people who were discovering F-Droid for the first time, and spending a genuinely good weekend at FrOSCon.

It was my first time in Germany and my first FrOSCon, and I am really glad that this is how I got to experience both.

Couple of other posts I found about FrOSCon: 1. https://ev.phosh.mobi/blog/froscon-2026/ 2. https://koblenzdigital.wordpress.com/2026/08/18/mein-erster-besuch-auf-der-froscon-2026/