Community Matters

Linux Kongress is the oldest Linux event. How do I know? Well, in 1994, Linux Kongress in Heidelberg was the first ever conference on Linux. It was a really cool event that brought most of the key Linux developers of the time together – many of us met there in person for the first time! And since then, every year there has been a Linux Kongress (okay, that’s mildly cheating, last year’s event was only held “in spirit” as part of linux.conf.eu when the Kernel Summit came to Cambridge and the Linux Kongress organizers didn’t want to try to create an event competing wiht that).

So yesterday I had the honor to be the closing presenter at the 2008 edition of Linux Kongress, after having to miss attending a few of the last years. It was great to see so many familiar faces and my only regret was that based on some personal travel that I did earlier in the week I had to miss the first day of the event. Still, I had a great time and enjoyed the opportunity to talk about “Mobile Linux” and what I think it will take for the community to create a really compelling OS for the mobile internet user. I tried to explain where Linux falls short at present and what we are doing with the Moblin community to create the technologies to help to close that gap. Of course I took a chance to show off the amazing five second boot of an EeePC. But see for yourself. The talk should be up in the archive of Linux Pro Magazin’s Online Conference Streaming, soon.