"LinuxTag is the biggest fair in Europe with the theme of Linux and Open Source....LinuxTag sets the benchmark for development of innovative concepts and strong synergies." These are two key ideas from the home page of LinuxTag.org (German). As you know if you have been visiting WorldWatch, Germany is very big on Linux and Free Software. For example: SuSE, one of the main Linux providers in Germany, now has 400 employees, and the German government is actively promoting Linux by using it themselves and providing resources for conversion for anyone interested.

In addition, the LinuxTag site has a subdomain OpenMusic.LinuxTag.org which is in English. A few sentences from this site lets you know that they "get it" as far as what Open Source is all about:

'The OpenMusic Initiative wants to support successful Open Source technologies in the music business. It goal is to provide a solution to the ongoing crisis of the music industry...Don't ask "How can I keep people from listening to my music without paying", but rather "How can I make money from my music?"...OpenMusic supports the natural development of music and sound. Imagine if Hildegard von Bingen had had a full-blown copyright-lawyer on her hands: a whole musical style would have not been developed because of restrictive copyrights.'

In case you don't know her name: Hildegard von Bingen, although a twelfth-century nun, seems very appropriate to our times, as she was a composer, a medicinal marijuana advocate, and wrote what was probably the first description of the female orgasm.

Jon maddog Hall delivered the keynote address this year at LinuxTag. Jon is Executive Director of Linux International (English), "a non-profit association of groups, corporations and others that work towards the promotion of growth of the Linux operating system and the Linux community." We had the pleasure of interviewing him after he got back:

WWLG: Is this your first time in Germany? At a European convention? At LinuxTag?

md: No, I have been to Germany many times, and to various European conventions
several times more than that. I have been to LinuxTag twice before, CeBIT
six times, the Linux Kongress three times, and several other German
conferences.

WWLG: Do you speak German or any other languages, especially European?

md: I speak no languages other than English, "C", Fortran, bash, a little Perl, etc. I took French in high school, but by the time I could actually use it, all I could remember were the words for asking to buy 20 postcard stamps.

I have never heard of the "European language". Is it more like German or
French?

WWLG: My use of the word "European" was as an adjective modifying 'languages', not a noun. Sorry for the confusion; sometimes in English you have to impute the part of speech from the context since English is not inflected.

md: I knew exactly what you meant, it was just an example of my dry American
humor.

It is interesting how many people come up, anxious to communicate, speak in
a language which is not their native tongue, and apologize for how poor their
English is. I often tell them "Your English is almost infinitely better than
my name of foreign language here." For the most part, they understand that
I travel a lot, and they can not expect me to know EVERY language. I think if
I were to learn a new language at my age, it would be Mandarin.

WWLG: Did you kiss the ground when you got back to New Hampshire (USA)?

md: I have only kissed the ground upon landing one time, and it was not due to
coming back from Europe. Most of the time I enjoy myself when I travel.

WWLG: Was there a mix of attendees, or was it mostly a certain type, say German Geeks? How many people were from different cultures, e. g. US, UK, French, etc.? Were there students, professionals, teachers...?

md: The event was mostly German language, with a few talks in English. The organizers were sensitive to this issue, and are discussing it now. They even took a speaker survey:

Lng| Share

---+-----

DE | 19%

DX | 40%

EN | 19%

EX | 19%

DX and EX means "German preferred, english possible" and vice versa.

So you can see that the bulk of the people understand German, with only 19 percent being English only in the speaker area. I would expect that the audience has an even lower number of people who only understand English, since it is a user event, and not aimed toward the developers (for the most part).

WWLG: How is this conference different from others you have attended, either in your own cultural context or another?

md: LinuxTag has a motto: "Where .com meets .org" and they do a fairly good job of it. The technical conference is free (as in beer), with a small (10 Euro) price to purchase the CD-ROM with the talks on it and a conference pin. You pay for your food and drinks, and of course the trade show is gratis also.

There is a charge for the business conference, which is fair.

The conference has a wide range of topics, with four or five simultaneous tracks, plus a rather large trade show floor made up of "simple" booths. I dislike the booths where companies put thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars into the booth, then send marketing people to talk about the product. Just give me a simple booth with the products and technical people to talk with.

This is what LinuxTag did.

WWLG: How do you feel at this conference, as a Linux insider...

md: I am a "Linux insider?"

WWLG: ...As an American?

md: When will the Europeans ever learn to make weak, nasty-tasting coffee like
we do? A guy could die of thirst over there. Oh well, there is the beer.....

WWLG: ...As a person?

md: There is the beer. Seriously, the Germans made me feel very welcome. I was
particularly happy that almost a thousand people came to my keynote, even
though it was only in English.

WWLG: Do you sense any change in attitudes, in any sphere you're comfortable in, at this conference?

md: Not really.

WWLG: How was your talk received? Was it well attended? Did you get any comments later? Would you change your subject (or anything else) now that you've done your talk?

md: As I said, it was well received and well attended. I actually gave two talks. One was the keynote which (due to an error on my part) I did not get to quite finish (I thought I had more time than I did). The second talk was a "funny" talk given at the reception of "Why is a Player Piano and Linux alike?" As in all of my "humorous" talks, there is a story and a moral. They laughed at the jokes and understood the moral.

No, I would not have changed anything. Oh, I should mention that I did not give the keynote that I submitted to LinuxTag. I looked at it the night before I gave the talk and it was pathetic, so I spent the night re-writing the keynote, and it was MUCH better.

WWLG: Were there any undercurrents you care to mention, things that were subtly (or not so subtly!) apparent?

md: I am not a subtle person. You have to be pretty blunt with me.

WWLG: Were any new issues brought up that you were not aware of, either in talks or on the side?

md: Not really.

WWLG: Did you hear any talk of SCO v. IBM? If so, did anything strike you differently about this, or was it the Same Old Stuff?

md: I heard a lot less about it than at the Computer Associates event the next
week. I think the LinuxTag people were fairly up on the information, so
didn't need it rehashed again.

WWLG: What is your goal in life? Did going to this conference in any way help you to get closer to this?

md: My goal in life is to meet good people, to help people along the way, and to enjoy myself while I am doing that. Eventually I want to create Maddog's Monastery for Microcomputing, and I am always on the lookout for good students, good professors and a good place to host it. The point is the fellowship that would happen in such a place. While I might not make the main headquarters in Germany, perhaps a branch of the order might find its way there. Certainly I found some fellow brothers (and sisters) at LinuxTag.

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As maddog points out, the community nature of Open Source is one of the main attractions. It's not just about software, it's about regaining some semblance of humanity in our society. We hope that all of our readers, wherever they may be, will have the chance to visit a Linux/OSS conference in their country of choice.

Here are some of maddog's pictures which he shared with us:

LinuxTag Sign Advertising Event

Podium where maddog gave his keynote.
He threw these "Open Animals" into the audience during the speech.

LinuxTag Entrance Sign.

Conrad Parker talking about his program for editing music.

Note his icon "Scrubby" on his T-shirt.

- Willy Smith, reporting from Costa Rica