GUADEC logo Next week, hundreds of GNOME developers and users will arrive in Gothenburg, Sweden for GUADEC, GNOME's annual flagship conference. GNOME is a free software desktop environment with a focus on ease of use and accessibility for all. It is the default desktop environment for many distributions, including Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

GUADEC is where the GNOME community meets to plan new features and to get to know the people they see online every day. Because GNOME works on every layer of the stack, GUADEC draws developers working on everything from applications to the kernel. The technologies showcased at GUADEC are often used in surprising places, such as virtualization and container software.

GUADEC features three days of presentations on technology, community, and user experience. After the core conference, GUADEC provides space for three more days of hackfests and birds-of-a-feather sessions.

This is the 16th year for GUADEC. Since the first GUADEC in Paris in 2000, GUADEC has rotated to different cities throughout Europe. Each year's conference is organized by a local group of GNOME developers, users, and enthusiasts. Beyond being a standout technical conference, GUADEC helps recognize and celebrate local GNOME communities.