Welcome to HOSS
The Houston Open Source Society (HOSS) is a society dedicated to promoting open source software education, development, and support. We profess collaborative coding practices, user-ownership of data and software, and digital civic engagement in the Houston metropolitan area.
Our society is always flat, and free. We're a voluntary community organization that functions as a democratic egalitarian collective. Money never exchanges hands. We're not a profit-corporaiton nor a 501(c)(3) non-profit, we're just a bunch of Houstonians from all walks of life.
We meet every Wednesday at different locations around Houston. Each meeting features talks and discussions about open source projects, and technologies. We also host collaborative coding sessions, and classes, and opportunities to contribute to important civic technology initiatives.
Hacker, programmer, student or tech enthusiast? Check us out!
What We Do
Join us every Wednesday for classes, talks, discussions, coding sessions, and community building
- Talks
- Share knowledge, come give a lightning talk about technology you're interested in.
- Classes
- Want to learn about software, or how to make it? We have classes at all levels from how to write simple scripts that manipulate spreadsheets, to software development and detailed forays into kernel design.
- Open Source Development
- Collaborate on projects and learn best practices for open source contribution. We teach you how to exist with software you own and how to retain ownership of your data.
- Civic Technology
- Learn and assist in local efforts to contribute to OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikipedia, and Wikimedia Commons. Our organization plays a major role in digitizing Houston for all.
- Community Building
- Foster connections between developers, designers, and technology enthusiasts
Join Us
Connect with us on social media and join our discussions:
Next Meeting
Our meetings rotate to different locations each week. Check our Meetings by Week section to find details about the current week's meeting location and agenda.
What We Believe
We believe that open source software development, collaborative coding practices, and civic technology engagement are essential to building a more connected and technically literate community.
- Open Source First: We advocate for open source solutions and contribute to existing projects whenever possible
- Collaborative Learning: Knowledge sharing and peer mentorship are core to our community
- Civic Engagement: Technology should serve the public good, and we actively contribute to civic technology projects
- Inclusive Community: We welcome developers, designers, students, and technology enthusiasts of all skill levels
- Transparency: We operate with openness and transparency in all our activities
Get Involved
There are many ways to get involved with HOSS:
- Attend Meetings: Join us every (or any) Wednesday at rotating locations around Houston. We'd love to have you. Attendance means a lot, and we appreciate everyone that joins us and helps grow our community.
- Participate: It's not rocket science. It's very easy. Come talk about any technology that interests you. We want to see what gets your gears going. A lightning talk is 30 seconds to 15 minutes, but if you can't swing it -- we're still glad to have you out.
- Community Building: Help organize events, reach out to new members, or improve our infrastructure.
- Help us flier college campuses.
- Suggest to us speakers you'd like to have, or better yet suggest to them that you'd like them to come give a talk at HOS.
- Help us make the connections needed to secure future venue space.
- Help us find sponsors that want to buy food or drinks for the group: we don't accept cash.
- Contribute to Projects: Participate in our ongoing open source projects and civic technology initiatives. Help with our ongoing contributions to OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, and Wikidata