Without the vast number of voluntary supporters past LinuxTag events
wouldn't have been possible at all. On the financial side LinuxTag has
always made only little profit after the event. Without these nearly 100
volunteers who have supported us directly during the event and during its
preparation the show wouldn't have been possible.
Without the help of so many supporters during the event, the entire show
isn't possible. Hence, it is important to either generate more income and
be able to pay for hostesses and callboys or manage a proper environment in
which many supporters want to help. For this, accepting the importance of
the supporters, acknowledging their work and supporting them with food,
fluids, fun and other advantages is very important.
To my regret, I have to admit that this has not always been the case inside
the core team. I have argued in favour of the supporters several times, so
hopefully not much of it has been noticed by them.
Supporters have worked in several different areas. I'll try to list them
below but I'm sure I already forgot half of them even though I have coached
most supporters directly or indirectly.
We have maintained the parking ground so we were able to ensure that the
Festplatz in the middle of LinuxTag is not abused as a parking place during
the event. This required us to maintain a gate with at least one
gatekeeper from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. This was a lot of work, and it
wasn't that interesting, but good for people who want to read or hack in
the gatekeeper pavilion.
We have manually built the projects network in the exhibition halls. In
the conference building it was built by the KaLUG. All information signs
and plans had to be drawn, printed, magnified and fixed at their respective
locations. There are a lot of additional signs that we have maintained to
help visitors find their way. I'm sure still a lot of signs were missing.
I have used the opportunity to prepare most of them after the last event,
so that we have less work for the new one.
Our own office had to be set up, since we've used naked rooms with only
some cupboards, tables and chairs inside. More furniture had to be
arranged, the network had to be built up, the server had to be installed or
configured, the printer had to be attached, the network configuration
needed testing, the desks had to be set up.
For some years now one to three volunteers have helped us in the office in
order to support the core team and so that we are able to present visitors,
exhibitors, the press etc. We've had an an additional human firewall who
worked for two or three days usually and was able to support most people
already without clogging the office room.
The firewall (Arne) himself had the idea to become a firewall several years
ago and I have to agree that it was a very good idea. However, with the
exhibitor support maintained at a special booth at the entrance less work
had to be done for the firewall this year.
Several large and self-standing signs had to be prepared or repaired after
the had been broken at the last event or their content has been obsoleted.
Signs for the gate from above had to be printed and fixed at proper
locations so that exhibitors find their way.
We have built up the entire audio and video equipment on our own with a
service provider from Bremen. Since this affected up to six rooms a lot of
equipment and cables had to be moved, installed and dismantled after the
show. For this we've helped J rg and Sven with several volunteers.
The business congress had to be prepared as well. Stuff for the attendees
had to be created and taken to the conference building. The entrance
counter for it had to be maintained and staffed. Doors had to be secured.
Deliveries had to be maintained in a storage area, since before LinuxTag a
lot of stuff is delivered to LinuxTag without the target booth built up
already. During setting up the booth, the booth builders also had to be
supported and problems detected, discussed and corrected.
During the entire time of our siege of the fairground we've had to maintain
our own storage of fluids and food. Due to the high temperatures having
around enough fluids was very important. In addition to this demands for
several goods also required us to send somebody out for shopping each day.
In order not to die of starvation during the event we have also organised a
delicious lunch for all supporters and core team members. Kudos to Thomas
we were able to order large pots of salad and cooked food for two years so
that we didn't have to eat unhealthy food (such as fat pizza for six days)
and everybody could decide on their own how much they want to eat. In the
years before we've had rented a cook and even ordered Pizza. The food had
to be fetched from the restaurant, arranged, together with table clothes,
cutlery and stuff, and finally taken back at the evening. Cutlery had to
be cleaned regularly as well.
For the social event the location had to be cleaned and prepared. This
year we've had the great opportunity to use the Nancy Caf which was unused
for about 10 years, and hence required a lot of cleaning. As it turned out
just before the show began, it required a lot more cleaning than expected.
However, thanks to the competent and highly motivated supporters the
location was cleaned in time. Kudos to Claudia, this year's social event
was also one of the most successful.
For the legendary KaLUG party the location had to be prepared as well and
the food cooked. Looking at the pictures, the pavilions had to be built,
tables and chairs arranged, cutlery and fluids organised. In the evening
all the stuff had to be cleaned as well. This year KaLUG had organised a
so called "Sp lmobil" that helped with doing the washing-up, but somebody
had to work in it as well.
The KaLUG has maintained the Internet caf in the conference building and
has set up the network for the exhibiting projects in the conference
building. For this they have acquired a lot of computers and network
equipment that had to be built up and dismantled after the show. They have
also acquired a number of movable walls for separating booths and providing
poster space.
During the show we have distributed fluids for the conference rooms and
exchanged information posters and flyers with the daily schedules. When
you're giving a talk, your throat often gets quite dry, hence, a cup of
fresh water is a good cure, but requires the organisator to maintain water
and cups. Since the conference program changed daily posters and handouts
had to be exchanged during the evening.
Project exhibitors were supported directly by us while company exhibitors
were supported by a service provider. Additionally all speakers had to be
supported as well. The conference rooms were also maintained by a
moderator who supported the speaker, announced the talks and speakers, ran
(!) around with a microphone, helped in case of technical problems and
maintained the schedule.
Even though it may look strange for an outsider there are a lot of costs
that emerge when such an event is organised at a commercial fairground.
LinuxTag has always had the problem of only little yield after all bills
have been paid after the show but had to start preparing the event for the
upcoming year. In the past years it was always a struggle to continue with
only little financial substance trying to get the next event set up
properly.
LinuxTag has been unique in its configuration, looking at its history, its
organisation structure, its size and its components. There are basically
only three ways of creating income: commercial exhibition, business
congress and sponsoring. All three have obviously been on the descending
path for several years now, reducing a lot of flexibility for the
organisation. This income has had to be used for all expenses.
On the other side there are a lot of areas that just cost money, such as
the conference building, exhibition hall, hotel, travel reimbursements,
projects booths, advertising. In addition to that we've had two service
providers that have taken over some tasks and needed to be paid as well. A
very rough overview is in my
Howto
LinuxTag talk from this summer.
Plenty to think about and as many have pointed out the key place to resolve all this is probably going to be at LCA’06 in Dunedin. I think as James has pointed out though, it is going to be very beneficial for us all if we can do much of the talking beforehand and at least get an idea of where everyone is at, even if we are poles apart in terms of what we think.
Then I had to edit out the build instructions for the 
The future for Ruby and Emacs is looking hopeful. I learned that a
proper Ruby grammar for the semantic package is being worked on,
which will enable class browsing and intelligent completion.
I am still disappointed that there's no version of Emacs
that uses Xft or Pango for anti-aliased font rendering. To get sharp fonts,
I still need to use a bitmap font like misc-fixed. If I were in the
business of offering bounties for open source development, dragging
Emacs into the GTK2/Pango era would be the biggest one.
Checking the mailing lists indicates that 