1. Summary

Provide feedback, input, and/or approval of Flock 2026 Call for Proposals (CFP) themes *by Tuesday, 11 November 2025*

1. Background

The Flock Organizer Team is getting the party back together for 2026. One of the many things we are working on is the CFP to open before the end of this year. (Crazy, right??) As part of this process, we invite input from the various Fedora leadership bodies (Council, FESCo, Mindshare Committee, and EPEL Steering Committee) on the themes we have come up with so far.

Since we are planning to open the CFP before the end of the year, we do have a deadline for providing input, feedback, and comments. I am formally requesting any feedback on the 2026 CFP themes *no later than Tuesday, 11 November 2025*. This will leave enough time for the Flock Organizer Team to address feedback and open the CFP before the end of the year.

This is not a guarantee we will implement every single piece of feedback. We are asking four diverse committees for feedback, after all! However, the Flock Organizer Team respects the perspective and input of all our leadership bodies to help influence the content we want to have at Flock 2026. So, we ask for your collaborative input to help us build a community conference that we are all proud of.

1. Details

At the time of opening this ticket, we have come up with four themes. These themes do *not* necessarily correspond to tracks or how the actual schedule will be organized. However, it will be more like "tags" that a submitter can apply to their content. In an ideal world, every accepted session at Flock will clearly fit into at least one theme.

Here they are:

1. *Freedom: The Open Frontier* — This theme explores how Fedora pushes the boundaries of technological freedom. We invite proposals on FOSS approaches to Artificial Intelligence, the advancement of open hardware like RISC-V, the development of open standards, and the protection of data privacy. Sessions should focus on how our work in the Fedora Project creates a more free and collaborative technological world for everyone.
2. *Friends: Our Fedora Story* — This theme celebrates the people and practices that make our community unique. We seek proposals that share stories of mentorship, successful team collaboration, and effective onboarding within Fedora. Collaboration is key to our success, so sessions about our partnerships with other FOSS communities should center on the mutual benefits and the positive impact these relationships have on the Fedora Project.
3. *Features: Engineering Fedora's Core* — As a contributor conference, this theme dives deep into the craft of building our distribution. We welcome sessions on improvements to our infrastructure, release engineering processes, and community tooling. This is the place for technical talks that showcase our engineering excellence and the collaborative work that makes a Fedora release possible, from code to final artifact.
4. *First: Blueprint for the Future: Fedora 45 & 46* — This theme focuses on the near-term innovations that will define the next generation of Linux. With the next few Fedora Linux releases serving as the foundation for RHEL 11, this is a critical time. We are looking for forward-looking technical talks on the changes, features, and architectural decisions in F45 and F46 that will shape the future of the operating system, from the community desktop to the core of the enterprise.

1. Outcome

Council discusses and reviews the themes, provides input as comments to the Fedora Discussion topic opened by this ticket *no later than Tuesday, 11 November 2025*, and the Flock Organizer Team incorporates as much thoughtful feedback as we can before opening the CFP later this year.

(Also, `+1`/`0`/`-1` votes would be nice to keep in Pagure per precedent.)