Pre-FOSDEM & FOSDEM 2026, Community, Databases, and Open Source

This is a recap of Percona at preFosdem and Fosdem!

Before FOSDEM officially started, the database community gathered for MySQL Belgium Days (Pre-FOSDEM), a two-day event bringing together MySQL developers, DBAs, engineers, tool builders, and open-source enthusiasts. It was an excellent space for deep technical discussions, knowledge sharing, and reconnecting with the community, hosted by the amazing Frederic Descamps. The event featured strong participation from Percona and the wider MySQL ecosystem, with talks led by Peter Zaitsev, Marco Tusa, Fernando Laudares Camargos, Arunjith Aravindan, Vinicius Grippa, Pep Pla, and Yura Sorokin.

Find the recordings of the talks here.

Also, in Belgium same week, several other events took place, including PGDay-FOSDEM, MariaDB Day, and the MySQL Summit.

At PGDay, it was a pleasure to see the PostgreSQL community together; we had several participants representing us.

MariaDB Day. We had Peter Zeitsev presenting a talk titled “What MariaDB Community can learn from PostgreSQL?”

MySQL summit

During MySQL Days in Brussels, the community gathered for an in-person MySQL Summit focused on collaboration and strengthening the MySQL ecosystem, with open discussions around its present and future driven by community involvement.

MySQL RockStars 2026

The MySQL Rockstar Award is a recognition given by the MySQL Community Team at Oracle, together with previous award winners, to members of the MySQL community who have actively contributed to promoting MySQL during the past year. MySQL Legends are long-standing community members who have made a significant and lasting impact on the adoption, development, and evolution of MySQL over many years.

This year, the MySQL RockStars selected were:

• Matthias Crauwels
• Marco Tusa
• Umesh Shastry
• Ronald Bradford
• Marcelo Altmann

Congratulations to all of them! You can find previous MySQL RockStars in this list

FOSDEM 2026, Percona booth

At the Percona booth, conversations focused on open-source databases and Kubernetes, including OpenEverest’s first-ever presence at FOSDEM. Around 40 Perconians were present, a great chance to finally meet many colleagues in person. As always, we had many visitors, and it was great to see that many already knew about Percona, while others were eager to learn more and explore what we do in the world of Open Source!

FOSDEM 2026, Databases DevRoom

FOSDEM 2026 officially kicked off at the ULB Solbosch Campus, bringing together thousands of open-source contributors from around the world. The Database DevRoom (UB2.252A) was packed with high-quality talks and discussions, co-led with Matthias Crauwels and Ray Paik, and

Find more details and some of the recordings here.

Celebrating 20 Years of Percona

This year, Percona celebrates its 20th anniversary. Throughout FOSDEM and Pre-FOSDEM events, it was inspiring to meet long-time users who have relied on Percona’s open-source solutions for years and shared their positive experiences. You can explore Percona’s 20-year journey here: 👉 https://percona20.com/ If you’ve had a great experience with Percona, you’re invited to share your story via the community survey.

See you at FOSDEM 2027! ∎