Ubuntu conference in Berlin

As the days grew shorter and the leaves began to fall, Ubucon [1] made its presence known. Last year, friends of the Ubuntu operating system met again in Berlin. At the last minute, the organizers arranged the venue at the College of Business, Technology and Culture, but it proved lucky in the end, because the conference location just off the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin-Mitte was also a convenient spot for sightseeing.

The sixth Ubucon may have shrunk in size compared to the previous year's event, but it didn't lose quality and it continued to distinguished itself with interesting talks and workshops. Because of a shortage of new recruits to Ubuntu Germany e.V, discussions in the previous year had questioned whether Ubucon 2012 would even take place. That made its very existence in 2012 a success.

Shift in Priorities

The 2012 event illustrated the changing balance between workshops and talks. Whereas 13 talks were held the previous year, that number climbed to almost 20 in 2012. But, because there were no events on Friday, the number of workshops dropped from 11 to 7. Nonetheless, the quality of presentations left nothing to complain about. The program proved to be well-rounded, informative, and instructive – and also well attended.

One more change was obvious. In the past, the content at Ubucon generally revolved around free and open source software. This time, however, events focused more on Ubuntu. For example, discussion was more about Canonical's strategic direction and development planning for Ubuntu. Additionally, participants discussed the application of the distribution in the professional arena, in consideration of Ubuntu's increased positioning as a corporate desktop.

Strictly Business

Another innovation was the Business Talk, which was the only event that provided no advance details. The topics included market share, marketing strategies, and Ubuntu's sustainability, as well as free and open source software in general. The participants showed themselves to be pleased with the event and rated the Business Talk a successful innovation. A main reason was the ability to look beyond the technical horizon and simply interact with like-minded individuals (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Every year, Ubucon attracts new people who are interested in Ubuntu in particular and Linux in general.