The news today are maybe somewhat different, but nonetheless important! Here is Chris aka hribhrib - the person responsible for starting onFOSS - and I want to announce something amazing, no new event, but a big THANKS for FIVE years of hosting public onFOSS events! What?! Is it really five years already?! Yeah, you heard right, and I just want to thank EVERYBODY involved for the great five years we are already doing this! <3 And if you interested in a bit of history, the struggles behind the scene, or just want to learn more about what we are doing here - make yourself cosy and prepare for story time!
As already mentioned, onFOSS is celebrating 5 years of PUBLIC events, but what’s about the “public” part? To answer that I may have to reach back a bit: As many great ideas, they start in the brain of a single person that doesn’t see the world how it is, but see the world how it could be! Personally, I am hosting “gaming events” aka “LAN-Parties” since my teens! Although rather small, the spirit of a “LAN-Party” is the same for small and big ones alike, nonetheless! Coming together, enjoying the art of video games in a safe environment, competing against each other, doing cosy co-op stuff, just spectate, talk about games or just having fun in general - this is IMHO the spirit of a LAN-Party. Speaking of, throughout the year 2020 (yeah, that times!) I felt an urge to go back to the roots and try to connect people again through the power of video games (and virtual communication), and furthermore, I did start researching the world of FOSS-gaming! Combining all together, what do you get? YES, EXACTLY! The first private onFOSS event on 2021-01-02! I think, I don’t have to go into details why such an event should maybe be tested beforehand - and my following hosts may also tell their own stories about “testing in production” - and after only 3 private test runs I went live to the public! “Not all games will work as expected, even after having tested it the day before, but that’s all part of the experience.” DeathByDenim is adding.
From the get-go it was clear, that such events can not really be managed with one person solely, so from the beginning I had my crew ready to host gameserver at their homes, help manage tournaments and also did advertisements! The really first event was just a proof of concept, where we just meet in Mumble and have a list of games available, that one was manageable on my own to host! xD Starting with the second event, I introduced “timetables” so that people know beforehand what is played when, and tournaments! Spoiler: The timetable part may backfire in the future, but currently only people from the same time-zone joined, so no problem… YET! After having a timetable and games that are suited for tournaments (spectate and moderation, drop in/outs,…) I wanted to make a final test, and guess what? The structure never really changed that much! :D So on that part, thanks for all the people that were supporting me before I went live with onFOSS! Without you, it wouldn’t be worked out that flawlessly! Or did it?! xD
The first public event was on 2021-04-17, exactly 5 years before today! So there I was, prepared, battle-tested, trying not to dox myself any more than before, I finally announced the event on Reddit where it instantly got noticed and the community effort already started! People started bridging the chat to different protocols and also already spread the word of mouth! I was OVERWHELMED how well-received the announcement was, I was prepared for zero visitors! However, that alone showed me that I may not the only one that imagined the world how it could be! However, there was one total disaster: THOSE FRICKING TIME-ZONES! xD Fool me thought declaring that the times listed are in CET would be enough, however, I learned the hard way doing international events without proper time-coding and don’t get me started on the 1-hour time changes! But people had fun either way, and that’s the most important part! “Time zones were a bit challenging being one of the few non-Europeans, but fortunately I usually get up quite early anyway!” says DeathByDenim. Some of you guys were already there from the start and still are around after 5 years! Another big THANK YOU for the outstanding long support and contributions!
Time-zones were not the only problem and also not “fixed” in a user-friendly manner within the next events! The “spectating” part was also not sufficiently met, so I started to look out for streamers for the event! “For the two events I’ve hosted so far, finding a streamer has been the biggest challenge. The first one I actually ended up streaming myself. Trying to manage both the game server and the stream while also playing the game turned out to be quite a lot. I’ll blame that for failing to find out how to change the game mode in Pixelpusher before everyone got bored.” adds Huitsi. Also, my “programming skills” would backfire on me, as I finally started an “automation script” for setting up game-servers - they were still hosted on local machines and not on an VPS! So, after someone wanted to donate an hourly-based VPS for the next event I started a bash-script of getting the servers run on a fresh Debian install, however, maybe not that “automatic” as it should be! I may, could or should have improved the script, but besides doing everything else and still the only host at the time around, I took some shortcuts! ;) BUUUT as onFOSS is getting bigger the community contributions also got more elaborated!
In the beginning of 2022 I tried to experiment with getting more people behind the scenes, and what happened? Finally, another person who wanted to “suffer”! DeathByDenim got the courage to become the second host of an onFOSS event! They noticed, “I joined a few as a particpant and it was really fun. Then hribhrib ran out of time so I figured, oh well how hard can it be! Of course, hribhrib was very open to that.” Now I can finally switch from “I” to “we”! <3 We also started doing donations in the name of onFOSS! :D And it was just the beginning! Today we already have 5 individual hosts and finally have events very regularly!
“The system for hosting games seemed a bit primitive (hi hribhrib 😆!), so I implemented a more automated way of running a VM with game servers. I went a wee bit overboard but it turned out well.” DeathByDenim is nitpicking, as they didn’t want to fiddle with my game-server script any more, they took the opportunity to completely redo it in a more robust manner! This script is still rocking today with many more contributions over the time! The script finally implemented every individual game-server as proper systemd services, had a web-sever for information about the current event and also implemented game-server-administration stuff! With this script being now user-friendly, having another host to take responsibility I could now focus on getting “the whole picture” right and started a rebranding under the new domain “onFOSS.org” and a brand new website! “I found dealing with Ruby stuff to be quite bothersome and that’s what’s needed to get Jekyll working. Nowadays I just have it locked in a Distrobox and hope it never breaks, knock on wood.” sndein is hoping.
Some of you guys may remember the endless talks about the former name “onFOSS-LAN” where the “LAN” part was the confusing one! It was never a LAN-Party technically-wise, but the spirit of an LAN-Party is still there to the day! So what’s about “onFOSS-WAN”? Nah, still confusing… and after some brainstorming we kept it simple and just rebrand the event to just be called “onFOSS”! :D It is really hard to explain what onFOSS really is, you may have to experience it to “get it”, therefore the rebranding was very necessary to get everything under one umbrella! The biggest part of it was: getting more people to host the event! As it was always community-driven, and the idea of “providing resources that anyone can host their onFOSS” was always present, but as it is already hard to get it across what onFOSS really is, it was not easier to get people to host one of them! Starting with another host, we also initiated the “HowToHost” document to have a “getting started” on how to do an onFOSS event! :D
“I can’t recall exactly when and where I learned about onFOSS, but I do remember forgetting about and thus missing the first event I was going to partake in. Several successfully joined events later, I volunteered to host an event to end (what at least felt like) a longer-than-usual break. Somehow I managed to do that on the same day another host had started to plan an event, but we ended up going ahead with me as the next host.” narrates Huitsi.
We’ve reached further than I ever could have imagined… you set a seed into the world and watch it grow, struggle, getting bigger and bigger and at some point you don’t have much control over it any more. But that’s a great thing! With that many hosts, streamer, advertiser, organizations,… and especially participants we already have built a solid groundwork to further build up onto! I can not put it into words how great- and thankful I am for all your support, contributions and finally also takeover of responsibilities and onFOSS getting even more independent! That “I am the single point of failure” was always a thorn in my side and I finally feel that onFOSS is getting that kind of that open community as I always saw it! We have people hosting the chats, people that improve the game-server, do news post, social media and everything around that so far that it still can run without me! But wait, that sounds like a farewell? HACK NO! You can’t get rid of me! xD From the first event on I had a dream: to ATTEND an onFOSS event and not be the host! And my dream got fulfilled! After seeing onFOSS gaining traction I dreamed about onFOSS being a 100% community-driven thing, and I guess we are finally there, another dream fulfilled! But what about “the next” step, the future? :O
“I found one of the earlier events promoted on Reddit and immediately liked the idea. All the online gaming communities I’ve ever been part of have been pretty heavy on voice chat and that’s something I found sorely missing with libre games. Jumping into multiplayer always felt very anonymous to me. So when I saw a Mumble linked I jumped right in. I only started hosting a few years later. As usual with me and contributing to projects the reason was a bit of annoyance on my part. I’m not too keen on playing more experimental games (looking at you, Yorg) so I thought if I hosted events myself I could make sure they don’t make it in, lol. Every host making it a bit of their own thing is quite nice.” sndein tosses in.
onFOSS already far exceeded my expectations, so what is there left to achieve?! We have a solid ground, regular events, many people involved, so what comes next? Yeah, “the more, the merrier” is always a goal, to get more people to enjoy such an experience. So what is left to do? The most important stuff we never have to forget: HAVE FUN! :D And keep going! As long there is someone of us, that sees the world in a better way than it is, trying to make it a better place and get people all around the world together with the power of art, onFOSS can still exist! <3
Before I am going to conclude the blog post, here are some closing words from our hosts.
DeathByDenim: “It’s really fun to host something like this and see people having fun playing the games. I learned a lot on how to set up web interfaces, deploy scripts and whatnot. Finding new games to play is a blast too. Even games that fail are fun to see fail (Ahem.. Yorg!). It’s also very nice that all the communication is already taken care of by the community and people are always willing to help.”
Huitsi: “The events themselves are certainly the best part, and I’m glad to be able to help make them happen more regularly. I’ve also enjoyed bringing back some games from earlier events that I personally hadn’t gotten to play.”
sndein: “In general I just enjoy our little community and having a place to enjoy libre games with others while chatting. With the fairly open organization structure where anyone can host and such it’s also really easy to help out and bring in your own ideas. If I had to point to something specific though, it’d have to be playing the Quake horde mode I cobbled together for the last event I hosted. There’s something really fulfilling about other people enjoying something you created.”
Again, I want to thank everybody involved! I am glad to found new friends along the journey, learned new stuff, how everything has evolved and getting me through hard times! I want to thank everyone personally and in the name of onFOSS in no particular order nor completion:
You can find the complete list of onFOSS events here.
So, keep save, have fun, wish you much love and see you next onFOSS ;) There is also a community-hangout tomorrow 2026-04-18 were we hang out and play some VoxelLibre, so join us! :D
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The schedule features six games scheduled over about seven hours. We’ll be trying out a new game, Spaceships, and VoxeLibre is making a comeback after a long absence (so long, in fact, that both the game and its engine went by a different name back then). See the full schedule here and the complete list of games below.
The full game list is:
The schedule can be found on the schedule page. For communication during and between events, see our front page.
Hope to see you there!
]]>Our next event will be coming very soon on Saturday 07th February 2026, 12:00 UTC. The host is Elouin and it will be livestreamed by Szkodnix.
This is a whole day event, you can find the full schedule here.
A new game is included (“Suroi”) along with a “Community Pick”! (You can choose a game that will be played on the next event, make sure to place your vote in The Community poll and choose the games you like, the top voted game will get the “Community Pick”-slot.)
The poll has now concluded. The winning game is Super Tux Kart!
Of course, we have some seen before classics as well. The full game list is:
The schedule can be found on the schedule page.
Hope to see you soon!
]]>Our next event is coming to you in 2 weeks on Saturday 06 December 2025, 12:00 UTC hosted this time by sndein. Huitsi will be streaming the event on our Peertube channel.
For this one we decided to try something new and focus almost entirely on cooperative games.
As you may have read in our last blog post sndein has ported over Quake’s horde mode which we’ll be playing, of course using LibreQuake assets (or not, both should work actually).
The one game that isn’t coop will be Super Tux Kart. They just recently had their new 1.5 release. We’ll be trying out the battle mode but of course we can always switch to races if that’s desired.
The schedule will be rounded out by Hurry Curry!, Nazi Zombies: Portable, the Teeworlds-based DDRace and Mindustry.
Here’s the full list:
The schedule can be found on the schedule page.
Hope to see you very soon!
]]>In 2021 Quake got an official rerelease and with that an expansion by Machine Games as well as an accompanying horde mode. The QuakeC source code for this was made freely available under the GPLv2 license, just like the original Quake source so I thought that too could be combined with LibreQuake to play the horde mode at onFOSS.
Turns out it was a bit more effort than I initially thought. The QuakeC is only made for the original NetQuake protocol which doesn’t feature any lag compensation unlike QuakeWorld, not a great fit for multiplayer. Luckily the QuakeC source from LibreQuake can be compiled for both, so all I had to to is mash the additions from Dimension of the Machine, most importantly the horde mode, in there with my limited QuakeC knowledge. I also made some additions like a client-side HUD that shows the current wave and owned keys as well as an endless survival mode that simply never lets you access the level exit.
A few assets also had to be created, spefically these two small models for some mood lighting. Funnily enough I have not made use of them in my mapping endeavours yet.
Ah right, of course maps were also needed. The Quake rerelease comes with seven horde maps but of course for onFOSS we won’t use those as they’re not under an open license. So I started making my own using LibreQuake textures. The first map, Condemned Labs, still needs some detailing and lighting but it’s fully playable at this stage. Here are some impressions.
I hope to have a second, smaller map ready for the first time we play this at onFOSS for some variety. We’ll bring you an announcement for that very soon.
If anyone else wants to map for this, or help out in other ways that would be greatly appreciated. You can find the repo here.
]]>We are glad to announce we finished our migration to a new PeerTube instance! But not just an announcement, we also made 1-2 short videos in case you missed the last livestream by Huitsi!
Thanks poVoq and F-hub to further support onFOSS with our new PeerTube account over on video.f-hub.org go check it out! We now also have 2 different Channels, one dedicated for live-streams and one for any other videos!
Further, we want to thank everyone involved with onFOSS for their support, doesn’t matter if you are a host, provide services, being a FOSS-game-developer or just are here for the fun, thanks everybody! And the most important: thanks to all the participants that go on a journey with us together!
Since the last non event-announcement post we also got THREE new hosts! Otherwise, it would be impossible to keep a regular schedule! And with the growing help we also continuously improve our documentation, game-server, homepage,… and everything is getting better!
Thank you all and see you next onFOSS ;)
Our next event will be coming very soon on Saturday 18th of October 2025, 12:00 UTC. This event will be hosted by Huitsi, who’ll also stream the event.
This is a 6+ hour event. You can find the full schedule here.
There’s no completely new game this time, but Wasted “should be a completely different game from last time we tried it” according to the dev. You can also help pick the last game for the night. Make sure to place your vote in the poll by Thursday 16th of October 2025, 9:00 UTC. The top voted game will get the “Community Pick”-slot!
The poll has concluded, and the result is a tie between OpenSpades and Xonotic! Both games will be available during the event.
The full game list is:
The schedule can be found on the schedule page.
Hope to see you there!
]]>This is a whole day event, you can find the full schedule here.
A new game is included (“Pixelpusher”) along with a “Community Pick”! (You can choose a game that will be played on the next event, make sure to place your vote in The Community poll and choose the games you like, the top voted game will get the “Community Pick”-slot.)
Rampoina will organize a tournament in OpenHV! The winner will get to pick a FOSS game related project that will receive a donation of €25 (EUR) from Elouin. For more information see our Tournament page.
If you plan on participating please fill the following poll.
The event is organized on Matrix, but you can join any number of the available channels listed on the main page, they are all bridged together.
It’s going to be a 1v1 tournament, the specific format is yet to be determined based on how many people join. Probably a round robin and then a finals.
The following settings must be used:
Of course, we have some seen before classics as well. The full game list is:
The schedule can be found on the schedule page.
Hope to see you soon!
]]>There will be a “Community Pick”! YOU can choose a game that will be played on the next event, just visit our poll and choose the games you like, the top voted game will get the “Community Pick”-slot.
There will be three “new” games this time. “Hurry Curry!”, “Tanks of Freedom” and an old classic “OpenArena”!
A Tournament will happen in Tanks of Freedom 2! The winner will get to pick a FOSS game related project that will recieve a donation of €25 (EUR) from Elouin. For more information see our Tournament page.
Of course, we have some seen before classics as well. The full game list is:
The schedule can be found on the schedule page.
Hope to see you soon!
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