When we announced that UbuCon Europe 2026 was heading back to the sunny side of Linux, we knew we were in for a treat. There is a rare kind of magic in the energy, the passion, and the engagement from the Spanish open source community that continues to blow us away. Set against the beautiful backdrop of La Térmica on June 26th and 27th, OpenSouthCode was more than a tech conference, it was a unique open source experience.
Talks, workshops, and activities 
We had a fantastic lineup of Ubuntu and Canonical sessions that spanned everything from security to the future of the ecosystem, and were delivered in a mix of English and Spanish to appeal to the international and the local crowd. Here are the highlights:
- Las claves de la seguridad en Ubuntu. @federicoquattrin took us deep inside the Ubuntu Security Team for a fascinating “behind the curtain” look at how Ubuntu stays rock-solid. He highlighted the dual approach to ecosystem protection: the reactive side, mastering massive CVE triage and stable patch backporting, and the proactive side, involving strict Snap confinement, AppArmor policies, and the Main Inclusion Review process. To top it off, he revealed how the team is now integrating AI into their workflows to scale these operations with precision.
- Decoding Design: Why Open Source Can’t Thrive Without Open Design. @mdivo delivered a powerful wake-up call on breaking the “us vs them” mentality between engineers and designers. The takeaway? For open source to truly scale and empower users, UX must be a first-class citizen in the development workflow, not an afterthought.
- Newelle: Your Ultimate Virtual Assistant with Sovereign AI. @fenris introduced us to Newelle, a local AI assistant built specifically for the GNOME ecosystem. It’s all about Sovereign AI—keeping your data local while enjoying a seamless, plugin-extensible experience on the Linux desktop.
- CODA: A New Contribution Model for Open Source. Onboarding in open source is often broken, but CODA is fixing it. @degville showed us how a centralized “social feed” of bite-sized tasks, combined with dedicated mentorship, is lowering the barrier to entry for new contributors. A game changer for community growth!
- Operate Your Homelab Apps Using Juju. Who says Kubernetes is only for the enterprise? Erin and @gschiano demonstrated how to supercharge your homelab using Juju. They introduced the paas-charm framework, creating a “fast track” for developers to deploy and manage apps without needing to be an orchestration expert.
- El año de [empaquetar tu aplicación Python para] Linux en el escritorio. This is the workshop that tackled the “circles of hell” known as software packaging. @astrojuanlu walked us through modern tools like uv, maturin, and Briefcase, proving that shipping Python and Rust apps across Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage is easier than ever.
The hallway track: booths, demos, retro gaming and art 
This year, the Ubuntu double booth also doubled down on demos. From passport-sized cluster boards to custom networks, everything at the Ubuntu booth was a celebration of self-hosted, open source homelabs. The demos spanned across Microcloud, Kubernetes, Ubuntu deployment with YAML, MAAS, and cloud-init, collaborative markdown editing, and much more. All this resulted in a constant flow of fantastic interactions with both veteran contributors and newcomers, eager to explore the orange side of Linux.
La Térmica and OpenSouthCode expanded the horizons of what a community event should offer. The beautiful venue featured entire halls filled with stunning art, a networking garden always open for people to explore possibilities, and even a room dedicated to retro gaming. This event is a hidden pearl of brain-stimulating activities.
OpenSouthKids! 
The last day of the event had an entire huge space dedicated to kids. This is a unique take, where kids take the center stage and are shown a lot of activities suitable for any age. From open source gaming, to coding, and even design, the young ones and their parents had a geeky journey at OpenSouthCode. The Ubuntu circle of friends was very young this day. We had a Minetest (now called Luanti) server hosted in our Microcloud cluster, and connected through our off-the-grid network to various Raspberry Pi and low-powered devices. This was a great opportunity to show that the whole stack can be open source, from the operating system to the game.
@mdivo prepared an incredibly colorful activity with the OpenSouthKids, where they were given the freedom to imagine the next Ubuntu Mascot, the Stonking Stingray. What a blast!
Get Involved 
UbuCon Europe 2026 is a wrap, but the magic of Ubuntu doesn’t happen only at the UbuCons around the world. It happens every day through the contributions of people like you! Whether you are a seasoned developer, a documentation wizard, or someone who just loves helping others, there is a place for you in our community.
If you’re feeling inspired by the energy of UbuCon Europe, now is the perfect time to jump in. If you want to get started, you can find valuable information in the Ubuntu Community web page, engage with us here on the Ubuntu Discourse, or chat on the Ubuntu Community Matrix. You can also stay tuned on the Ubuntu blog, and Ubuntu Weekly News.