Final Report
Berlin, 25 May 2013 – Outstanding keynote speakers, market leaders and creative project teams at the exhibition, as well as 10.200 visitors – LinuxTag 2013 again offered proof that it is Europe’s leading trade fair and conference on Linux and open source software.
During the four-day event on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds it became clear that the developers and users who make up the community continue to be a driving force behind the success of Open Source. A statement in the keynote speech by kernel developer Matthew Garrett on UEFI and Secure Boot exemplified that fact: “This is a technology that could potentially shut out users, something that would mainly affect minor-level distribution. In that respect I am against UEFI“, he said after the Kernel Kwestioning discussion round in which eight other kernel developers had participated. Garrett was instrumental in developing the Linux code that lets Linux run on modern computers.
Benjamin Mako Hill, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called upon the participants not to accept so-called anti-features, performance-limiting components built into hardware by manufacturers, which help them to assert their interests, increase profits and protect their market position. He quoted the example of digital cameras that are unable to store RAW images despite being technically capable of doing so. “We do not need features that restrict our freedom“, was how he summed up the users’ demands.
Commenting on the event’s aims, Nils Magnus, Director LinuxTag e.V.“, said: “Our uppermost priority is to always maintain an atmosphere of fairness among all those involved in Open Source. Accordingly, we have taken on board the suggestions of partners such as the Open Source Business Alliance and Open Stack Foundation and have included independent partner events. We have also brought the lecture venues and workshops we organised closer together, along with the exhibition projects and providers. That was very well received by our visitors.”
The programme at LinuxTag and the two partner events featured around 200 individual events. 46 companies and 70 independent projects were . represented in Halls 7.1 and 6.3. Thomas Gelf’s paper on configuration management using Puppet, Ralph Angenendt’s lecture on agile system administration and Robert Clausecker’s presentation of the programming language GO were particularly well received. Attendance at the OpenStack Day was high too. The event was opened by Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director of the OpenStack Foundation.
The 205 speakers at LinuxTag 2013 came from 17 countries. To date, over 2,700 experts from around the world have contributed towards the success of this industry event.
Exhibitors and conference participants satisfied
“Once again, LinuxTag was a big success for us“, said Werner Fischer, Manager of Research & Development, Thomas-Krenn.AG. “We had lots of positive meetings, about open source projects as well as with our customers. Discussions on future trends and our search for qualified staff were among the main reasons for taking part in this year’s event. The reactions to our two lectures on SSD performance and LXC virtualisation were very positive.“
Henrik Teichmann, Programmer, Dedicated Servers, STRATO AG, was “very satisfied“ with the way the fair went. “We took the opportunity that LinuxTag offered to look for developers and the response was excellent. We met a lot of experienced professionals interested in working for STRATO, as well as many students. We even had numerous students on the stand looking for trainee positions.”
The first OpenStackDay for the DACH region was organised by hastexo Professional Services GmbH (Austria). Managing Director Florian Haas: “Berlin was the first stop on the European OpenStack Day circuit. We had 150 registrations and in the end more than 200 participants and are very satisfied. OpenStack has become a firmly integrated part of the IT environment in the US, and so we had speakers from New York, Seattle and Texas. Clearly, OpenStack’s popularity is increasing in Europe as well. Besides the lectures, what was most important for us was our meetings with companies such as Telekom, SUSE and Netways who are already using OpenStack.“
Martin Bayer, member of the Document Foundation, described LinuxTag as “an outstanding event, as regards both the exhibition and the programme of papers. Visitors welcome the fact that they can meet experts here able to answer their technical questions.“
Torsten Franz, member of Ubuntu Deutschland e.V.: “Once again, visitors expressed great interest and we received many more technical questions. This year’s LinuxTag featured more events than last year. However, the business-oriented Open-IT Summit should be closer to LinuxTag.“
Christian Heldwein, Chairman, ProtoSoft AG: “This was our first time at LinuxTag and we are satisfied with the way the fair went. Our company’s focus is on business clients and we had some interesting meetings. The meetings with our partners IBM, arkeia and SUSE were an all-round success. We intend to be back next year.”
Papers ranged from web development to embedded Linux
Key topics at the conference included mobile and high-performance web development, embedded Linux for industrial applications, enterprise storage as continuous integration and configuration management as well as Open Source in the cloud. More than 20 workshops also took place.
In addition to specialist papers, professional advanced training was also provided in the form of tutorials on specific subjects and through certification. LPI, the world's leading Linux certification organisation, held a total of 90 exams in Berlin. Special events, including the Hacking Contest and Kernel Kwestioning with numerous Linux developers in attendance as well as Key Signing parties rounded off the wide-ranging and extensive programme of events.
Some leading names were sponsors of the nineteenth LinuxTag. One of the Platinum sponsors was Kaspersky Lab, and Community sponsors include Billiger.de, Fedora, Getdigital, Immobilienscout, Kernel Concepts, Nokia, Tarent and Univention.
About LinuxTag
LinuxTag is Europe's leading trade fair and conference on Linux and open source software. The four-day event has been taking place since 1996, and annually on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds since 2007. It offers the 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 hosts 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. More details are available at www.linuxtag.org.
The next Linuxtag will take place from 25 to 28 June 2014 in Berlin.