In 1999 I went to
LinuxTag as
a Debian representative after the project has received an offer to staff a
booth there. I took over the maintenance and organised the first Debian
meeting in Germany. I also gave two talks during this event, one of them
was even repeated on the second day. We've had a lot of fun and since this
was the first meeting of Debian affiliated people in Germany, it was very
interesting to connect faces to mail addresses and to learn more about the
people behind a name.
This LinuxTag was the last such event that took place at the University
Kaiserslautern. Free projects such as KDE and Debian have been offered a
booth in one building from which one could reach the lecture rooms, while
company booths were located in the Mensa building with their own
professional booths. It was a warm weekend and the Jolt people have
supported us with cool and caffeined drinks.
We had the opportunity to use a lecture room for sleeping with other
project members. Klaus Knopper was supporting the network and supervised
the security team, and hence, had the unfortunate job to move away all
project members from their booths, out of the building or into the lecture
room. I've heard, that he had a hard time, and still believes that Debian
people don't need sleep. I guess we should have moved him into the lecture
room for a sleep instead.
This '99 LinuxTag was quite a real success. It took place at the rise of
the dot com era and all people were happy about the event. There were
about 7,000 visitors in total on both days. The city of Kaiserslautern has
called the university several times since there were no free hotel rooms
anymore. Former events happened more or less unnoticed by locals, but not
anymore in 1999.
After the show was over, we dismantled the booth, moved away our own
equipment and left the place. However, I made the "mistake" to notice that
the LinuxTag people, who have provided us such a great opportunity, still
had work to do since they had to dismantle the booth system and clean the
ground floor. My biggest "mistake" was that I didn't run away and have a
nice evening but decided to help and ask other booth members who were still
around to do the same.
Having cleaned up the location quite fast was not the only result. Oliver
Zendel, who was in charge of talking to the community and who offered
Debian the booth, spoke to me afterwards and wondered whether I would be
interested to join the team. Well, I knew how to organise stuff, can talk
to people, know quite some people in the community, the LinuxTag people
were a cool team, so why not.
So for the event in 2000 I was in charge of the projects exhibition.
In 2000 we also had to move out of the university of Kaiserslautern since
7,000 visitors were already too much for that small university and city.
That's why we eventually moved to the Stuttgart fair. That was an
interesting experience. It was also interesting to see how such an event
can be organised by a team of friends and how the acceptance in the
business world was.
In Stuttgart we were able to use a small office (max. 15m ) for the entire
team as working space. Two computers were installed which we were allowed
to touch but not to install a real system on. Hence, Klaus brought Knoppix
CDs. This was the first time that I learned about the Knoppix Live CD.
Together with my notebook we've had three desks and could work. However,
today I really wonder how this could have worked with so many people, but
apparently it really did.
Due to the need and my experience in both talking to the press and being
the press I joined the LinuxTag press team and even held the final press
conference, while my colleague held the opening press conference. So after
all projects were happy, the show went fine and most of the office jobs
were done, I prepared a press release together with others and maintained
the final conference.
This was also the first time LinuxTag has organised a business congress as
a special extra program for business representatives. It was also the time
I experienced the need for several supporters for various tasks. In that
year, a dozen supporters were paid as "security" who also drove the
shopping for us. Hence, I already acquired some people who supported us as
volunteers. That was also the time when Benny joined the team.
In 2000 the exhibition boomed and there were a lot of large dot com company
booths, which was very nice because LinuxTag arose from a students
association and became more and more professional, a platform for both
companies and projects. It was organised just like a Free Software project
and worked non-commercially. Despite several flame wars and disputes,
which seem to be normal, it was organised by friends who believed of a
higher goal. It was very nice and gave me a warm feeling when looking at
what we have achieved. However, I had nothing to do with commercial
interests, income, acquisition, invoices etc., so I may have missed a lot.
This year, LinuxTag was planned to take place in one exhibition hall, but
there were so many companies interested in running a booth that a second
exhibition hall was later rented as well. That's why there were two
adjacent halls instead of one large location.
In 2001 we were using a different exhibition hall, a larger one due to the
strong demand in 2000, but still at the Stuttgart fair. This time I was
also in charge of the supporters and already dispatched jobs during the
event. From time to time I also maintained the shuttle service to the
airport to pick up speakers or take back speakers, which I've also done in
2000.
This time we've had a larger office in which all of use fit and which was a
nice working atmosphere. We were also able to provide more booth space to
Free Software projects. In that year I've automatically taken over the
office and communication with the outside world, collecting and
distribution information. I don't think this was planned, but it just
happened since I was able to do the job besides my other obligations. I
also gave a talk about Debian, even though others in the team considered me
insane for doing that as well.
With a lot of help by the local user group, we were able to offer project
members a cheap sleeping opportunity. The LUG acquired a gym hall during
the night an cooked in the student's office "Hellblaues Nilpferd". After
I've picked up Hans Reiser I went there for a snack with him before dumping
him at the hotel. It was a nice atmosphere. One of the lead people for
this effort, Hubert Kai er, was suddenly overtaken by death two weeks ago.
In 2002 LinuxTag moved to Karlsruhe and thus to a new fair where everything
had to start again from zero. We had to get acquainted with the local
company and their representatives and learn how the new fairground works.
The fairground was more interesting since there was a large open area
between the conference site and the exhibition hall. Looking at past
years, it was used by visitors.
Thanks a lot to Jochen Topf from GUUG and members of the local user group
KaLUG a lot of community events happened during LinuxTag. They maintained
an Internet caf in the conference building and organised the legendary
KaLUG party which has become a regular LinuxTag event. In addition to that
I've also worked more and more and took over more areas where I noticed
help was needed and that I could manage it.
So it happened that I took over more work at and before LinuxTag which
finally resulted in two months of work were I don't remember a day on which
I've worked less than 8 hours for LinuxTag in 2005. In 2002 I worked on
the coding marathon and delegated the tasks and support during LinuxTag to
two other people, so it will run independent of me.
Since I was the first of the team to arrive in Karlsruhe, I also built up
the office and the storage. Due to the large distance I had to leave
Oldenburg the day before I want to arrive in Karlsruhe, so that I was at
the fairground at last at 10 o'clock on Sunday morning.
Before the event a lot of issues had to be negotiated with various parties,
which required quite a lot of work. Until 2004 the entire team was working
in their spare time without getting paid for their LinuxTag work. The
higher goal was the impulse and all of us had neglected one issue or
another that wasn't important for LinuxTag.
We've had some external service providers at least since 2002. The acquisition
became a difficult task for students who liked to work until the morning
and get up at lunch time, since many companies expect a partner that is
available for them from 9 to 5. That's why Charter was eventually hired
and this year ergomedia. For press work newthinking was hired. This year
the social event was also organised by them.
However, having two people from the board of directors being paid by the
association for their LinuxTag work from April, and external service
providers that were also paid, was something I considered problematic if
not unfair, looking at how other people commit to LinuxTag and don't get a
monetary compensation. Several people still worked a lot on LinuxTag in
their spare time and had to live from something as well. It caused
resentment in the team.
On Sunday I cleaned up and rested a bit. During the afternoon I got a bit cold and went out for a large walk around and over the campus. During the walk I’ve made some pictures which are available on my 
I got dropped off on the campus at the main reception. There I was able to store my luggage and I was kindly directed to the Mountbatten building, home of the school of MACS. There I met 
With keys, luggage and instructions I took off to the Lord Thomson Hall to find my room. At 17:00 I was completely settled in already. I met my (all Chinese) four kitchmates (yes, it’s a strange word) and went back to the university refectory for dinner. My room is a quite small, at least, smaller than I am used to (about half the area), but it has a bathroom (with shower), gets cleaned weekly and all the heating is included… so I am not complaining.
I must say that the people on campus are very nice. I can ask anyone if I need to know something and I always get help or a kind reply. There are really a lot of foreign students here (about 25%) who all share the same fate.
