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LinuxTag: 40% Growth Over Last Year

Posted by timothy on Tue Jul 15, 2003 03:45 AM
from the many-happy-returns dept.
Software Linux
LinuxDesktop.it writes "According to this article on pro-linux.de, LinuxTag 2003 was a success: 19500 visitors, up +40% from last year and the number of journalists covering the event increased twofold -- according to pro-linux thanks to the strong signals that the city of Munich switching 14k PCs to Linux sent through Germany. Exhibitors seemed quite satisfied too because they did not expect that the trade show generated that many business contacts since many reputed it as a more community event rather than a 'where .com meets .org' event."
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  • ssshhh.. let's keep Linux away from the news.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jkrise (535370) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @03:53AM (#6440788) Journal
    Fact is, GNU / Linux has had much success *inspite of* and not because of publicity. When the whole world was watching powerlessly, LinuxTAG got an injunction against SCO in Germany.

    I guess that's how Linux and GNU ought to be promoted / evangelised whatever. Just do it silently, no press releases, no fancy million dollar ad campaigns etc. People already know the value of Linux - no need to trivialise it by aping Microsoft and their methods.

    Peace.

    • Re:ssshhh.. let's keep Linux away from the news.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RoLi (141856) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:00AM (#6440814) Homepage
      The opposite is true.

      What is holding Linux back is very often prejudices and unawareness.

      Examples like Munich are very important and already did influence a lot of other organizations.

      • Re:ssshhh.. let's keep Linux away from the news.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jkrise (535370) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:07AM (#6440827) Journal
        Examples like Munich are very important and already did influence a lot of other organizations.

        If said organizations were holding up the roll out of their Linux plans until Munich decided to get 14,000 seats - they didn't get the proper message after all. Adopting Linux takes a little chutzpah, and a different mindset than the dog-eat-dog attitude prevalent in society now.

        I'd rather waut for the above orgs to get screwed paying for licenses and Service Packs, yet getting inferior code - and switching to Linux, after getting wiser by their own personal experiences.

        Peace.
        • I'd rather waut for the above orgs to get screwed paying for licenses and Service Packs, yet getting inferior code - and switching to Linux, after getting wiser by their own personal experiences.

          Right -- like that will ever happen!

          (No responses please from the humor impared. Thank you.)

    • Most people never even heard of Linux/GNU, let alone knowing the advantages. Your grandma probably have seen Microsoft advertisement before, but try asking her what GNU is. Unless you want to keep Linux to geeks, true marketing is necessary.

      • Most people never even heard of Linux/GNU, let alone knowing the advantages. Your grandma probably have seen Microsoft advertisement before, but try asking her what GNU is. Unless you want to keep Linux to geeks, true marketing is necessary.

        You are correct that there are lots of people who have no idea what Linux or GNU are. But there are also lots of people who have no idea what Microsoft or Windows are (such as my grandma :)). If you sit these people in front of a Windows+IE computer and then in front of a Linux+Mozilla computer, they may not actually notice any difference apart from slightly different icons (which are different between different Windows versions anyway).

      • A friend of mine contacted me recently about the amount of spam he was getting. My advice - get rid of Outlook Express and get Mozilla and use the mail client (and he has lots of crashes with OE).

        The changeover is going to take many years, but it's going to start with those sort of small changes.

        • This reminds me of what happened with my parents. Probably about a little over a year ago, they were having major computer problems (Windows ME I think). Although I think they had always used Netscape, apparently, my brother had tried to install the latest version of IE on the computer. During the install, a blue screen came up or something and the system crashed. Afterwards, the OS was basically toasted and would only start up in safe mode.

          Anyhow, the next time I was in town, I wiped the drive and rei

      • No one marketed Kazaaa either. If it's good enough and does what others can't, word will spread.

  • what else is there? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by davejenkins (99111) <slashdot&davejenkins,com> on Tuesday July 15 2003, @03:54AM (#6440795) Homepage
    What other conferences are worth seeing? I would submit that the motivation behind attending a conference is to 'discover' something, or to forward your exposure on some field that you (personally) feel that you don't understand as much as you should. This is probably the result of media buzz, FUD, rumor, or a combination of all three.

    Some (negative) examples toward my thesis:
    1. no one goes to a conference about vacuum cleaners or washing machines, because we all understand them.

    2. No one goes to MacWorld outside the religeous MacHeads, because that 'need to know' isn't there (other than the pure followers).

    3. People go to boat fairs, car shows, and consumer electronics to oogle at the latest and greatest. Business people are no better, but this is the one they can justify the cost of going (because they feel that 'gap' in their understanding, or their PHB feels the gap).

    Don't get me wrong, I'm glad more and more people are coming to these things, but I think there are other factors/inferences to be pulled from such a dramatic shift.

    • Re:what else is there? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tonywestonuk (261622) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:45AM (#6440934)
      If you're interested in IBM iron, then the Common conference (www.common.org) is well worth a visit.

      As IBM now are going Linux/Java, several of the training sessions are geared around this... Well worth it IMO.

      Tony.
    • 1. no one goes to a conference about vacuum cleaners or washing machines, because we all understand them.

      Actually, people do go to conferences about vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Those of the latter variety are held all the time by GE/Whirlpool/Maytag/etc. to show off their latest models to appliance dealers.

      3. People go to boat fairs, car shows, and consumer electronics to oogle at the latest and greatest.

      And you think people didn't go to Linuxtag for the same reason? I would say you are

      • Actually, people do go to conferences about vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Those of the latter variety are held all the time by GE/Whirlpool/Maytag/etc. to show off their latest models to appliance dealers.

        Very true, but when was the last time you heard about it on the radio. I think that parent poster was referring to the people that actually use the product.

  • Two critical notes (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was there, two critical notes:
    - Too commercial (it needs commercial stuff, but it needed more non-commercial stuff too).
    - 80 to 90 percent of the speaches in German.

    For the rest, it was okay, liked maddog's speach and seeing Linux on X-box ;-)

    • Re:Two critical notes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by seasunset (469481) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:02AM (#6440818) Homepage
      Being in Germany what language would you expect the speeches to be done? French? Dutch? Italian? Or is any other language on your mind?
      • At a Linux fair? Why Suomea or Svenska, of course.

        YAW.
      • Being in Germany what language would you expect the speeches to be done? French? Dutch? Italian?

        German, French, and (primarily) English...like CeBit.

        Seriously, though, I wouldn't worry about that for a while, though the alternate languages (French and English) will probably grow as LinuxTag does.

      • Being in Germany what language would you expect the speeches to be done? French? Dutch? Italian? Or is any other language on your mind?

        Nice knee-jerk reaction. I hope you know that virtually all scientific conferences with international presence are done in English.

    • Re:Two critical notes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:26AM (#6440880)
      >> I was there, two critical notes:
      >> [...]
      >>- 80 to 90 percent of the speaches in German.

      Well, when I (as a German) go to a conference in the US I also want them all to speak German.

      *sigh*

      Dont you think its normal that they keep conferences in Germany on a German event in German?

      • Re:Two critical notes (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Espen Skoglund (204722) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @05:12AM (#6440997)
        Dont you think its normal that they keep conferences in Germany on a German event in German?

        Not necessarily. If they want to reach a broader community they might want to make, e.g., the speeches more accessible by having them in a language that more people can understand. Considering that Karlsruhe (the place where Linux Tag takes place) is only 15-20 minutes away from France, and a few hours drive away from Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, this might not be a bad idea.

        [Sorry for my last post. I happened to press the submit button involuntarily.]

        • Those wouldn't all happen to be countries where a large percentage of the population speaks German (as well as their native tongues, English, and likely something else on top of that), would they?

          The conference was in Germany, hence the language should be German. Or do you think that the next Linux Expo in California should be held in Spanish as to reach a broader audience?

          This is one of the reasons I get really pissed at other Americans when I'm overseas; when I'm in Germany, I speak German -- it's only

        • Re:Two critical notes (Score:4, Informative)

          by geschild (43455) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @10:39AM (#6443155) Homepage

          The French the Americans are more alike than they know: neither will speak a foreign language, even at gun-point.

          [RANT]
          Let me enlighten you on the state of affairs in Europe, taking the countries you named to make an example:

          1. Switzerland has the following national languages. (The first three are official, see this [schweiz-in-sicht.ch] site for details.)
            • German (Sweitzerdeutsch, a dialect of German)
            • French
            • Italian
            • Retro-romanian (Rhaeto-Rumantsch, last place where this is spoken, like Basque it is completely different from all other languages in Europe).

          2. Belgium has the following national languages:
            • French
            • Dutch (Flemish, a dialect of Dutch is actually spoken but in school official Dutch is thaught)
            • German

          3. In Luxembourgh, the following languages are in wide spread use:
            • Lëtzebuergesch (A derivative of German, spoken only)
            • German
            • French

          4. To close it off, in the Netherlands, us poor souls have only one official language (Dutch) and one language local to a region (Fries). However, since we have been trading with the whole wide world since $DEITY knows when these languages are thaught in school to all children for at least a few years:
            • Dutch
            • English
            • German
            • French
          Now if you look closely at this list you will notice one thing: German is in all of these countries... The reason? because we are all only a few hours away from each other!Please remove your xenophobic head from your xenophobic behind and get a few language classes. Or just decide to stay at home and go to a local conference. Given the fact that the whole point of this article was that the attendance is high, despite most topics being in German, I doubt that you'll be missed.

          [/RANT]
          • It's sort of fun to see people getting all agitated about this. You did fail to mention the French, though, and even if many people in Alsace speak pretty good German (at least people involved in the tourist industry) I'm afraid this isn't really the case for the rest of France.

            Anyhow, I happen to live in Germany myself and I've come to learn that English is by far the best language to use for communication within a group consisting of various nationalities -- in particular when applied to computer peopl

            • At least somebody is having fun then. I didn't mention the French because you yourself dutifully left them out of your list for some reason.

              I do not disagree that English is spoken by most here in Europe. However, I find it disturbing that a German thinks English is more appropriate than German on a congress in Germany. I think it to be no more than common decency to use the native language if at all possible.

              You seem to be of the opinion that everybody everywhere should learn english asap so that we can

    • Windows XP Professional on the X-box (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > seeing Linux on X-box ;-)

      Hey -- this is old news. But I even saw Windows XP
      Professional on the X-box!

      Well, it was the new NX client [nomachine.com]
      for embedded Linux systems, which worked like
      "out of the box" on the X-box.

      It allows you to connect to any Linux or Windows
      system over the internet, and display that
      workstation's screen locally. It can use
      RDP/rdesktop (for Windows), or RFB/tightVNC (for
      any platform) or the NX server (on Linux). The NX
      server is the fastest, allowing even for a full
      KDE session running o
    • I was there, two critical notes:
      - Too commercial (it needs commercial stuff, but it needed more non-commercial stuff too).

      I was there too, and I disagree. It had exactly the right balance. I was very pleased to see that all the bubble companies are gone, replaced by businesses with serious business plans, and for the most part, also committed to supporting Linux in general.

      - 80 to 90 percent of the speaches in German.

      Mine wasn't, except for "Weiviel leute hier konnen mien Deutsch verstehen?".
    • Well, as others have pointed out with the language used should reflect the audience that the speech is intended. Since most of the audience was expected to be German, it makes sense that the speeches were in German. Yes there will be other nationalities there but the majority of the audience will be German.

      Additionally, the audience was expected to be a mix of technical and nontechnical people (journalists, etc) so the language cannot be too geeky. So that rules out Klingon and Yoda-speak.

    • That wasn't 10% in english. That was much more. A lot put up with a serious effort to speak english despite 80% of the people being german. You may have noticed that the event is called "LinuxTag" (german for "Linux Day") and actually took place in germany. *nudge*nudge*

      Did *you* go up to the ones that nearly broke their tongue speaking 90 min. in english and thank them for it?

      BTW: I'm shure that allmost everybody was able and willing to answer your specific questions after a speach in english, even if th
  • ... is simply Linux itself. We have moved from the early adopter stage to the mass market stage, and we can expect exponential growth of Linux adoption by business until only the late-adopters are still using old-fashioned stuff.
    For once this IT wave won't create an economic bubble: it is more like the waves of standardisation that hit new industries after their initial bubbles. Think railways in the 1850s(?) and standardized track sizes.
    The real economic boom will be in products and services that make use of this standard and modernised platform.
    If I was investing in IT today, it would be in communications systems that rely on a standard OS across multiple arbitrary systems. Think of 'your work anywhere', but relying on Linux on your PDA, mobile phone, desktop, etc.

    • Still got to get over MS Orafice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ratfynk (456467) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @05:32AM (#6441033) Journal
      I wish it were true, but there needs to be effective software Linux training for it to succeed in North American business. I do not see any institutions teaching the Linux system as a replacement for MS Access. I can see that a logical replacement for Access is already in the Linux system itself. One could develope an integrated user multi-tasking, paging, db quiery system from what Linux already has available to root and extra Gnu sources.

      The problem is business courses at all the accredited institutions are run exclusively by Microsoft trained people.

      So until training in Linux user control, db quiery and simple software admin becomes common we here in North America will need to bow to Redmond six times a day. If we want to work in any form of business other than Inet Server Admin.

      • Uhm, one is an operating system, the other a database. Compare MySQL to MSAccess, if you like. Anyhow, I disagree with the substance of your comment: there are many companies that provide Linux trainings, and there are hundreds of books and thousands of web sites providing guides. I suspect the wealth of information is significantly wider and deeper than that available for Windows. I also suspect the same is true for MySQL (for instance) compared to MS Access.
        The problem of training and culture is one t
      • Actually, take a gander at your local community colleges. Sure, they're "tech schools" and don't teach all that lovely theory behind the Operating System, but they're starting to warm up to linux, big time. My local community college, Southwest Tennessee Community College [cc.tn.us] offers a degree in "Programming, UNIX Concentration", where most of your skills are honed on Redhat systems (we also got development exposure on AIX, SCO and Solaris). There were always 20-30 people in all my classes, so the interest is

  • So what... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bio-Hazzard (689047) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:08AM (#6440829) Journal
    Linux is a better product and is growing like hell in both the server and client market. So... Anybody who knows anything worthwhile about computers knows about Linux, and anybody who is into computers in a heavy way uses Linux. Old news, but what MS doesnt get is that the growth of Linux is inevitable. It's free (MS cant compete price wise), It's stable (everybody sees what it does and because the codes there somebody's gonna know what wrong and a patch can get produced real quick) and YOU CAN CHANGE IT YOURSELF! (goverments love this).
    It isn't "Will Linux rise?" it's "How long is it gonna take?"

    • Re:So what... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GammaTau (636807) <jni@iki.fi> on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:35AM (#6440906) Homepage Journal

      Linux is a better product and is growing like hell in both the server and client market. So... Anybody who knows anything worthwhile about computers knows about Linux, and anybody who is into computers in a heavy way uses Linux.

      How about people (such as you and me) just donated a bit of their time to make the system better instead of praising it like a Borg drone programmed to repeat a message. I guess that might be too much to ask for some people, but I'm asking anyway. The constructive way is to investigate what makes people use other systems (like MS Windows, MacOS, or Solaris) and enhance free systems to comply with the needs of these people.

      • Re:So what... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ctve (635102) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @05:03AM (#6440976)
        Good point. And even you can't code, there's plenty else to do. Like checking a few Mozilla bugs are valid and not just down to an old build/dodgy HTML.

        Or installing and using stuff, showing it to their friends and advocating it on their websites etc.

        Or writing documentation for the projects.

        The biggest thing IMO is getting people onboard the OSS software train, and keeping them there.

        • Even if I'm not a Linux user/advocate I'll still throw my spoon into the soup.

          Help people use Linux! Camp the #linuxhelp in IRC network, check the message boards. Helping people is good and fullfilling thing to do, even if you don't have a (socio)political axe to grind.
          • I agree. Given the choice, I'd rather encourage people to use products like Mozilla, as a 'I'd rather give to a community than help boost a corporation'.

            I do it because it's only fair to me to give back a little (even though I have a family etc) to those who have given so much.

      • so we need to force Linux on every pc we can find, make sure applications are made for only linux, strongarm vendors into supporting linux instead of other os. OH and turn it into a pile of bloat.

        no thanks, I could care less why others use windows ;)

  • Translation (Score:5, Informative)

    by doktor-hladnjak (650513) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:22AM (#6440862)
    The organizers report an enormous increase in attendance at this year's
    LinuxTag. Two hours before the end of the convention they drew a
    preliminary conclusion for LinuxTag 2003: over 19,500 visitors were counted,
    more than 40% more than last year.

    The many international guests, for example John 'Maddog' Hall from the USA
    and Utaka Niibe of the Free Software Initiative Japan, ensured full
    presentation rooms. Also content-wise the presentations were predominantely
    high class.

    The exhibitors expressed themselves throughout positively surprised
    and satisfied. There were "extremely many business contacts" registered.
    Many exhibitors saw their expectations fullfilled. Whoever had seen
    LinuxTag still as a community event with relatively few business customers,
    saw themselves better informed.

    Oliver Zendel, the head of LinuxTag e.V., sees LinuxTag as a large success
    that proves that Linux and free software can also suceed in the field of professional
    business. LinuxTag is the largest Linux convention in Europe and
    according to his words, a "world-wide leading convention for free software."

    Highly visible was the effect, that arose from the decision by the city of
    Munich to use Linux. According to information from Pro-Linux the number
    of accredited journalists doubled from that of last year.
  • Yes, it's fantastic that LINUX is gaining such widespread adoption. The conference attendance increased huge time. Yippie!

  • Linux Growth Statistics (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thelandp (632129) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:50AM (#6440947)
    That's an interesting statistic for gauging the success of Linux.

    I tried to find other more general stats like say the market share of Linux and so on. They are very hard to find for various reasons [li.org]. But here is one that's as good as any (especially since we win!): Linux vs Microsoft [googlefight.com].

  • Highlight of Technical Innovations: I nominate "NX (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I even saw Windows XP Professional on the X-box!

    Well, it was the new NX client [nomachine.com] for embedded Linux systems, which worked like "out of the box" on the X-box.

    It allows you to connect to any Linux or Windows system over the internet, and display that workstation's screen locally. It can use RDP/rdesktop (for Windows), or RFB/tightVNC (for any platform) or the NX server (on Linux). The NX server is the fastest, allowing even for a full KDE session running over 9600 Baud modem connection. X-box "developers" suf
  • Just from
    """
    19500 visitors, up +40% from last year and the number of journalists covering the event increased twofold.
    """
    We conclude there were ~14000 people last year, i.e. 5500 more people turned up.

    Imagine if last year there were 8500 members of the public, and 5500 journos. And this year there were 8500 members of the public, and 11000 journos.

    Sorry, there's no conclusion; I just wanted to insert some deliberate distortion. I in particularly like the idea of journos outnumbering their readership!

    YAW.

  • I loved it ;)) (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I was the first time on the LinuxTag and I absolutely love it ;)

    I have realy enjoyed the talks, people, presentations, the atmosphere ....

    I am advertising it to my friend allready for the next year ...

    I can not find a single minus ;))

    Iztok (Slovenia)

    I also loved the kebab store on the corner of hotel ... they make excelent kebap's ....

  • Some other statistics (Score:4, Interesting)

    by parbot (629557) on Tuesday July 15 2003, @05:40AM (#6441053)
    Being a Linux user myself I really like the idea of Linux gaining market share.

    But.. Can somebody explain why according to Google's zeitgeist [google.com] Linux is still at 1% market share? According to Google's statistics, the market share of Linux hasn't change since at least August 2003 [google.com].
      • No, the Google zeitgeist reports hits to its pages from different operating systems. Assuming that google usage is pretty even across users of desktop operating systems, the zeitgeist is a reasonably accurate measure of how many people actually use GNU/Linux.

        Of course, not many people browse the web from their file server, so it doesn't measure server usage.
          • What distros actually do this? The distros I've tried come with default browsers that tell the truth. I think Linux usage on the desktop really is about as low as Google Zeitgeist would imply.
          • Yes, measuring something like linux usage is next to impossible. For example, I would imagine that linux users tend to use the web more, being more techy people. But then, do they know what they are looking for more and use bookmarks etc rather than google?

            Personally, I think 1-2% is probably about right. It seems more when I go on academic conferences and am surrounded by Gnome/KDE + linux laptops, but that is a biased sample. As much as it pains me to say it, Linux usage is pretty damn rare "in the real

    • Re:German article (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hrshgn (595514) <rince2001@@@gmx...ch> on Tuesday July 15 2003, @04:22AM (#6440865)
      Translation of the original article:

      The organisers of the LinuxTag are reporting an enormous growth of this year's LinuxTag. Two hours before the end of the fair they are giving preliminary results of LinuxTag 2003: more than 19'500 visitors were counted, an increase of 40% compared to last year.

      Numerous international guests like John 'Maddog' Hall from the USA and Yutaka Niibe of the Free Software Initiative Japan generated full auditories. Also in terms of content, the talks were mostly high class.

      Almost all exhibitors were positively surprised and satisfied. "An extreme number of business contacts" was registered. Many exhibitors saw their expectations fulfilled. Whoever saw LinuxTag as a community event with relatively few business customers was disabused(?).

      Oliver Zendel, head of the LinuxTag e.V., sees the LinuxTag as a big success which proofs that Linux and free software can also persist in the area of professional business. LinuxTag is the biggest Linux fair in Europe and according to his words a "worldwide leading fair in free software".

      Highly visible was the announcement effect of Munich's decision in favor of Linux. According to informarion from Pro-Linux, the number of accredited journalists has doubled compared to last year.

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