Berlin, 9 June 2009 – Never before has LinuxTag had so much to offer. With more than 300 individual events taking place, this year Europe’s leading event for Linux and open source software is larger and more wide-ranging than ever before. The programme of papers taking place from 24 to 27 June now comprises seven parallel tracks, added to which are other events at the Business & Public Authorities Conference, as well as workshops and forums.
The list of speakers reads like a who's who of the international open source community. Keynote speakers at the 15th LinuxTag in Berlin include Matthias Ettrich (Nokia), Glibc maintainer Ulrich Drepper (Red Hat) and Linux bestseller author Michael Kofler. Speakers from a total of 23 countries will offer their knowledge and experiences at LinuxTag 2009.
"Together with our programme committee we have undertaken everything to offer visitors the most important and latest information on up-to-the-minute open source topics“, said Nils Magnus, member of the board of LinuxTag e. V. “We are also responding to feedback from last year and presenting more practical contributions which system administrators can implement directly. This is underlined by tracks on storage networks, high-level availability, system management and virtualisation."
More information from all tracks
The extensive programme at LinuxTag 2009 has now been completed and can be viewed under the Programme section on the trade fair’s website. It lists all parts of the event, ranging from the Business & Public Authorities Conference to workshops. Compared with papers from previous years it is clear that there are significantly more topics for system administrators. The organisers have responded to demands from visitors to offer more directly usable information. All tracks reflect this. Participation in LinuxTag is approved as educational leave.
For system administrators: security and cloud computing
Volker Lendecke, who is among the leading developers, will present the progress made by Samba 3 along with his merger with Version 4. This will be augmented by a paper on clustered CIFS (Samba simultaneously on several servers) and GPFS, a cluster file system for high-performance computing.
At the Security track, Nmap co-developer David Fifield will explain the tools which have emerged from the well-known Admins program and what tools the project plans for the future. Other speakers will devote time to the issues of how to pick out weaknesses in web application codes (AppSec) and how to test existing servers for problems (OpenVAS).
Virtualisation, clusters and cloud computing often accompany each other and overlap to a large extent. In this respect Linux offers a number of solutions. Products on display include the Eucalyptus, Zimory and Amazons EC2 cloud frameworks, and use of high-performance computing, for example in the automotive industry. Virtualisation architect Kir Kolyshkin will report on parallels with the slimmed down virtualisation solution OpenVZ.
For developers: software maintenance and business intelligence
Writing software is one thing, but for companies maintaining it is also important. Linux currently has a number of solutions. The OpenJDK project is one of the main starting points for creating many applications. Its leading developer Dalibor Topic will report on future plans. Other topics include Maven 2 and tools for automating tests.
Anyone writing programs for companies does not start from the beginning, but instead resorts to an application platform which provides him with tools. Similar to JBoss, OW2 provides a series of servers, components and libraries which help developers to put business intelligence concepts into practice, i.e. to evaluate and link company data and to make it available to the relevant staff. This often takes the shape of portals which one can also superimpose on OW2. In his paper, Tugdual Grall will show how, using the OpenSocial standard, data from social networks can be integrated into these portals.
Global Open Source: papers from Asia, South America and Africa
There is a particularly large number of contributions from users who have carried out development projects locally in threshold countries and developing countries. There are papers on the implementation of the OLPC project in Afghanistan and Uruguay, with a report by Greg DeKoenigsberg, the architect of the OLPC software platform. The paper by James Wire of the Free Software Foundation from Africa (FOSSFA) also promises to be fascinating. He will report on the successes and difficulties experienced on this continent. The programme also includes the latest information on software patents and ideas on data storage and online voting.
Classic events: a hacking contest and Kernel Kwestioning
Once again they are among the highlights of this event marathon at the 15th LinuxTag: a hacking contest and Kernel Kwestioning. the 8th international LinuxTag hacking contest is a competition between several teams to secure and immunise a free operating system against attacks.
The system must then prove its worth and be able to resist attacks. Participants will present their preparations for attacks, the immunisation phase and a final demonstration of the remaining exploits live on stage.
At Kernel Kwestioning, programme organiser Magnus and c't kernel expert Thorsten Leemhuis will ask all Linux developers present to join in on stage for question time. Visitors will receive first-hand information about plans for future Linux versions.
No precise plans have yet been made for some of the events. Programme manager Magnus: "In the BarCamp spirit the projects taking part in our workshop rooms often organise additional papers at short notice or reveal a secret or two about the latest features. It is a good idea to follow the daily programme updates on the website.”
About LinuxTag
LinuxTag 2009 will be taking place from 24 to 27 June on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds. Europe’s leading event for Linux and free software is expected to attract an attendance of more than 10,000. The four-day event will offer the very latest information for professional users, decision-makers, developers, beginners and the community. In addition to the programme of papers and a separate Business & Public Authorities Conference, LinuxTag traditionally includes an exhibition featuring projects and companies associated with the Open Source sector. Verein LinuxTag e.V. is the non-commercial organiser of the event, which is staged jointly with Messe Berlin GmbH. Germany’s Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier has agreed to act as patron of LinuxTag 2009. More details can be found at www.linuxtag.org.