Kubuntu-de.org at FrOSCon 2008

On this year's August 23rd and 24th the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University for Applied Sciences hosted "FrOSCon" for the third time in a row, a convention about all topics related to free software. Once again Kubuntu-de.org was there this year to represent the German Kubuntu community as well as Kubuntu itself. The first batch of our team already arrived on Friday, prior to the opening, to set everything up and make preparations. Dinner with the folks from KDE and Amarok at the Asian restaurant adjacent to the hotel and the subsequent informal meeting in the hotel's bar helped us get in the mood for the convention weekend.

Saturday

Early the next day the event itself began and just like the year before Kubuntu was thematically placed in between Amarok and KDE. Both projects presented brand new software, like an up to date development snapshot of KDE4 or the just released first beta version of the popular music player Amarok 2.

Of course we had lots to show as well: thanks to the ShipIt program we could once more hand out CDs to people interested in Kubuntu and there really seems to be a never ending demand for these "original" Kubuntu CDs. Furthermore and in addition to the current stable version of Kubuntu we showed off the development version 8.10 on a netbook, to demonstrate that KDE and Kubuntu can be utilized flexibly.

Our personal highlight that day was being featured in a radio interview from Radio Tux on Kubuntu and the project Kubuntu-de.org. We were obviously happy about the chance to present ourselves like this, and Christian Mangold (aka neversfelde) as well as Monika Krug (aka Monika|K) used the opportunity to tell folks about us and Kubuntu. You can download the interview (German) from the Radio Tux website.

Saturday Night

The end of the first day drew nearer and the anticipation about the already legendary "Social Event" began to rise. Of course we had been well provided for the whole day, since the organizers supplied food and drink continuously. We'd have to say that we were very well looked after, and thanks a lot for that!

The social event itself consisted of barbecue and the consumption of a certain beer imitate ("Kölsch"), which ─ not least because of the very small glasses in which it is served ─ was regarded sceptically at first, but then consumed in growing quantities. Lots of conversations developed, often with members of other projects.

Sunday

On the next day the interest in what we had to show didn't decline. While part of the team took care of the guests at our booth the others headed over to the KDE Dev area, to present a closer look at Amarok 2, Kubuntu and Kubuntu-de.org to a smaller audience.

That's where Lydia Pintscher (Nightrose) and Sven Krolhas (sven423) held a presentation about Amarok 2. Marcus Czeslinski (Czessi) introduced Kubuntu, first by talking about its history and then by giving an extensive tour around the system. Ways how to get involved in Kubuntu development were shown as well. Finally Thomas David (nemphis) gave an account on the development of our community from its beginnings to the present day.

Keynotes and Talks

In addition to the attendance of many great open source projects, FrOSCon is remarkable for the extensive schedule of presentations from a wide range of topics. Since we had shown up as a large group we were able to keep our booth occupied and at the same time let interested members visit particular events. So it is worth one's while to help us represent the community and Kubuntu at FrOSCon 2009, since you won't have to take care of the booth the whole time, you can visit the presentations and events as well.

Surely this year's highlights were the keynotes held by popular speakers.

On Saturday the enthusiastic Linux critic, operating system developer and inventor of Minix, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, delighted his audience with a well-founded and highly interesting presentation about Minix. Vividly fashioned, his contribution often linked to Linux and Windows topics.

On the same day Sebastian Kügler held his well attended presentation about KDE4, where he also showed off the current development version.

On Sunday PHP inventor Rasmus Lerdorf took the stage and talked about scalability, performance and security of PHP. He, too, delivered an entertaining presentation in which he criticized several frameworks and recommended certain development techniques.

Last but not least Lenz Grimmer's presentation in the early morning has to be mentioned, where he gave an introduction to Bazaar.

Conclusion

To sum it up, the world of free software was represented well and the growing circle of people interested in its products was given a great chance to have a closer look. Also, with about 1200 visitor attending FroSCOn finally joins the ranks of the bigger conventions about free and open source software. It was quite the successful event for us and therefore for Kubuntu as a whole, and rest assured that we will gladly return in 2009 when FrOSCon will be held on 22. and 23. of August. See you there!

Also see: FrOSCon 2008 gallery