About this event

FrOSCon 2026 — Free and Open Source Software Conference (Research & Buyer-Target Profile)

1) Event snapshot (verified from the official website)

• Event name: Free and Open Source Software Conference (FrOSCon)
• Dates: August 15–16, 2026 (as shown: “August 2026 15.+16.”)
• Venue: Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Grantham-Allee 20, 53757 Sankt Augustin
• City/Region: Sankt Augustin
• Country: (not explicitly stated in the provided text)
• Core theme: Free Software and Open Source Software

FrOSCon is described as a two-day conference with talks and workshops, topped off with a fair of booths from FLOSS projects and companies. The program is organized by the computer science department of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, supported by FrOSCon e.V., and it includes a Saturday night social event intended to encourage exchange between visitors, speakers, and volunteers.

2) Who attends (buyers / attendees)

FrOSCon is not positioned as a traditional “enterprise procurement trade show.” Instead, it is community- and knowledge-driven, centered on Free Software and open source topics, with participation from both open source projects and open source-aligned companies. That changes who the “buyers” are: the highest-value targets are often not only corporate sales or marketing leaders, but also roles that influence adoption, partnerships, sponsorships, developer engagement, documentation/community programs, and technical evaluation.

A) Primary attendee groups

• Open source project communities: maintainers, contributors, maintainership teams, release managers, and community leaders who represent their projects via booths, devrooms, workshops, or social conversations.
• Developers and technical practitioners: people who attend for talks, hands-on learning, and networking across open source domains.
• Educators and students (all ages): the site explicitly states the program is for “visitors of all ages,” and the organizing department is part of Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg.
• Volunteers and event operators: volunteers registered via the volunteer system, supporting conference operations, sessions, and attendee experience.
• FLOSS companies and service providers: organizations that present products/services related to open source, tooling, infrastructure, security, developer workflows, and support.

B) “Buyer” roles (how we define buyer fit at FrOSCon)

For attendee-list/research purposes, the buyer set is best treated as a combination of sponsor/exhibitor decision-makers and open source-adoption influencers. In practice, these are often the people who decide to fund booths, participate in partnerships, sponsor workshops, support community efforts, or select vendors/tools for open source programs.

• Open source program decision-makers: leaders for open source strategy, developer relations, and ecosystem partnerships.
• Community and developer relations: community managers, developer advocates, and relations leads who engage with projects and organizers.
• Product and engineering leadership: engineering managers, platform leads, or technical product managers who evaluate tools, adopt open source components, or want visibility among developers.
• Security and compliance stakeholders: open source security is a common theme in open source ecosystems; people responsible for software supply chain, security review, and governance frequently attend.
• Support, services, and consultancy leaders: companies whose revenue depends on open source support, consulting, and integration often target such audiences.
• Education and training stakeholders: faculty, trainers, and curriculum leads aligned to open software and community learning.
• Sponsorship / partnership decision-makers: partnership managers, event/sponsorship leads, and marketing managers focused on developer ecosystems.

3) Where the show is happening + attendee geographic origin

Location: FrOSCon takes place at Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Grantham-Allee 20, 53757 Sankt Augustin.

Attendee geographic origin: The provided official text confirms the venue but does not directly list international versus domestic attendee breakdown. We can still give a reliable directional assessment:

• Local/Regional stronghold: Since the event is hosted by a German applied sciences university (Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg), and the address is in Sankt Augustin, the strongest baseline attendance typically comes from the surrounding region and wider Germany.
• National participation: The topics are broad (free software, open source development, workshops, project booths). Such conferences usually pull attendees from across the country, especially those involved in development, communities, and open source businesses.
• International pull: Open source conferences frequently attract global participation through project networks and livestream/recordings. However, since the official text provided here does not state the origin mix, we should treat international reach as “likely” rather than “confirmed.”

If we need to be strictly accurate for targeting, we recommend using language/topic match and exhibitor/project profiles to infer cross-border relevance rather than relying on stated geographic percentages.

4) Audience reach (Local / National / Global)

Based on the official description, FrOSCon is clearly a two-day conference with talks, workshops, and a booth fair supported by an academic department and FLOSS ecosystem partners. The text does not explicitly claim global scale in terms of attendee count or country mix.

Best-fit classification for reach:

• Local: Yes (university-hosted in Sankt Augustin)
• National: Likely (open source conference topics + project/company participation)
• Global: Possible / likely (open source community networks), but not explicitly stated in the provided official text

For research and prospecting, we can treat the attendee audience as a community network with both regional depth and wider reach through project and company participation.

5) Sample buyer company names (buyers only) + websites

The official website content provided does not include a list of exhibitors/companies in this excerpt. Because we must not invent buyers, we cannot reliably populate an “accurate buyers-only sample table” directly from the official material you shared.

To complete this section with true buyer names and correct websites, we need either:

• The “Exhibitors” page content (or the exhibitor list exported), or
• Your internal client requirements mapped to the kinds of organizations you want, plus confirmation that we can propose a non-official sample, or
• A target list you already have from prior events.

Important: Until we have exhibitor/company data from FrOSCon or another source you approve, we will keep this section as a “fill template” rather than fabricating buyers.

Priority	Company	Website	Best Title to Target	Why This is a Good Buyer Fit
1
2
3
4
5
6

If you paste the exhibitor list (even just company names), we will convert it into a complete 15–20 row buyer table with priority scoring, correct websites, recommended titles to target, and buyer-fit rationale.

6) Job profiles, industries & event type

FrOSCon’s official “What is FrOSCon?” description focuses on free software and open source topics, with talks/workshops for visitors of all ages, plus a booth fair for FLOSS projects and companies. The event themes and CfP focus areas also strongly suggest technical and ecosystem categories.

A) Job profiles to target (most relevant at FrOSCon)

• Developer Relations / Community: Developer Relations Manager, Community Manager, Developer Advocate
• Open Source Program / Partnerships: Head of Open Source, Open Source Program Manager, Ecosystem Partnerships Lead
• Engineering leadership: Engineering Manager, Platform Engineering Lead, Technical Product Manager (Developer Tools)
• Security & governance: Application Security Lead, Software Supply Chain Security Manager, Security Program Manager
• Support & professional services: Solutions Architect, Technical Support Lead, Professional Services Director
• Education and training: Faculty/Instructor, Training Program Lead, Learning & Development (Technical)
• Marketing for developer ecosystems: Developer Marketing Manager, Content Marketing Lead, Solutions Marketing
• Event/sponsorship decision-makers: Sponsorship Sales Lead, Partnerships Manager, Event Marketing Manager

B) Industries & event type (mapping to your Apollo-like industry list)

Using the industry list you provided (Apollo-style industries), the best fit for FrOSCon typically clusters around software, IT services, internet infrastructure, security, professional training, and events services.

• Computer Software (core fit: open source software adoption and ecosystem building)
• Information Technology & Services (support, hosting, tooling, integration)
• Computer & Network Security (open source security, supply-chain governance)
• Internet (internet services often rely on OSS)
• Marketing & Advertising (developer marketing and developer audience reach)
• Professional Training & Coaching (workshops, skills, education)
• Events Services (if a company sells or supports events/exhibition/production)
• E-Learning (training content and OSS learning programs, if applicable)
• Program Development (learning programs, tooling programs, community programs)
• Market Research (if a firm surveys developer ecosystems and OSS adoption trends)

C) Event type

• Conference + Workshops
• FLOSS project fair / Exhibitor booths
• Community networking via social event Saturday night
• Multi-audience learning (“visitors of all ages”)
• Knowledge sharing across free software, open source development, contributions, and ecosystem practices

7) Estimated attendance (expected total footfall)

The official excerpt you provided does not include an attendance figure (no “expected attendance” or “expected footfall” number is visible in the text supplied). Therefore, we cannot responsibly estimate an exact attendance count from the primary source you shared.

What we can do reliably: FrOSCon is positioned as a two-day event with a program of talks/workshops, a fair of booths from open source projects and companies, plus a Saturday night social event. For buyer targeting, the more important variable than the total headcount is the density of decision-makers and sponsor/influencer roles among exhibitors, volunteers, workshop speakers, and partner organizations.

To provide a true expected attendance number: we need either the official page section that states “attendance” or a credible official statement (or you may approve using a secondary estimate method).

8) Key focus areas & buyer engagement

The official CfP section shows explicit focus areas, which we can convert into buyer-relevant “engagement angles.” This helps us build a match between what attendees care about and what buyers want to accomplish at the event.

A) Key focus areas (from the official CfP themes)

• Prepping for crisis with FLOSS
• A life without iOS and Android
• Funding for Open Source (“Someone gonna pay - is it you?”)
• Right to repair for software and hardware (“Patch it, fix it, print it”)
• Lowering barriers — making OSS accessible for everyone
• Trust and contributions in 2026 (“Who can you trust?”)

B) Buyer engagement angles (what buyers can do at FrOSCon)

• Sponsorship & partner visibility: Buyers aligned to open source funding, community sustainability, and crisis readiness can engage via partner programs, sponsored sessions, and booth presence.
• Hands-on workshops: Companies offering developer tools, security tooling, automation tooling, or OSS learning programs can propose workshops that map directly to the CfP themes.
• Project ecosystem presence: Open source-aligned firms can position themselves as contributors and supporters of projects rather than purely promotional exhibitors.
• Technical content credibility: Buyers can benefit from speaking opportunities and technical credibility, because the audience is education- and engineering-oriented.
• Community exchanges: The Saturday social event is explicitly described as a place for exchange among visitors, speakers, and volunteers—this is ideal for buyer engagement centered on relationships and community trust.

9) Client-product fit check (must be answered with your client details)

We always evaluate best buyer segments only after we confirm what our client sells and who the buying decision-maker is. To do that properly for FrOSCon, we need the client’s website.

We request the client website URL (the page where the product/service is described).

9.1 What we will do once you share the website

• Review the client’s product category (e.g., software, security, tooling, training, services, hosting, governance).
• Map the product to the strongest FrOSCon themes (crisis readiness, funding, right to repair, accessibility, trust/contribution).
• Identify the best-fit buyer job profiles (based on decision influence: open source program leadership, developer relations, security governance, partnerships, or technical product leadership).
• Generate a prioritized buyer list that aligns with your Apollo-style industry filter list (from your provided industries).
• Produce the buyer-only sample table in the exact column structure you requested, including 15–20 sample rows.

9.2 “Always ask and give answer” — our questions back to you

• What is the client website URL?
• Who is the paying buyer? (marketing/sponsorship, engineering teams, security teams, training managers, or something else)
• Which countries/languages are your selling coverage?** (for example: Germany-only vs DACH vs EU vs global)
• Do you want exhibitors/partners biased targeting, or broader attendees?

10) Immediate deliverable template (15–20 buyers table) — ready to populate

Once you share either (a) FrOSCon exhibitor list content or (b) your client website so we can propose the closest “buyer-style” targets from the relevant industries, we will populate the following table with 15–20 buyer-only rows.

Priority	Company	Website	Best Title to Target	Why This is a Good Buyer Fit
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Next step

Please share the client website URL. After we review it, we will: (1) map it to the best-fitting industries from your list, (2) select the strongest buyer job profiles for FrOSCon, (3) produce a fully filled 15–20 buyers-only sample table with your required columns, and (4) tailor buyer-fit messaging to the event’s key CfP focus areas.