Reporting a revolution

[Willem Hellinga]

Hilversum, oktober, 27, 2007

The release party of Ubuntu in the neterlands, the day we celebrated the
release of version 7.10 "gutsy gibbon".

It has been a good day, we did not actually count the visitors, but
somewhere in between 400 and 500 visitors must have enterd oud doors.
About tien computers were installed, four hundred cd's were giving to
visitors, a special edition of the day and the regular one's. Many
gallons of coffee an thee were puored out into cups, 300 sandwiches were
made by hand and 500 Ubuntu pen's found a enthousiastic owner.

More important than these numers is the mood of the day, strangers met,
talking about the new release and open source. A simple cry for help in
the air was enough to get help of many people moving towards you the
assist. It was huge....
Anyone who ever visited a conference and left to late, knows that a lot
of litter is left behind, not this time, these people differ from the
rest, well raised and willing to share and care, no mess to cleanup
anywhere at all.....

Lots of very interesting speakers , very different in tone and voice,
but all together a very good combination. Jos Poortvliet (KDE) told us
about KDE 4, Dennis Kaarsemaker (ubuntu-nl)reviewed the highlights of
Gutsy, Willem Bol (Domino-Day, performer) kicked the afternoon off to
wake us all up again, Jan Stedehouder (digiplace.nl, writer) took some
time to tell the crowd all about Ubuntu, Valentijn Sessink (Open Office
nl and Holland Open)made OpenSource open, Arjen Kamphuis (KPHMS.nl)had a
very sharp view on Covernment and Open Source, Arda Gerkens (member of
parliament) did some inside viewing of the way the national government
uses their hard- and software and Sabina Gazic (city counsel Amsterdam)
told us how to deal with open source and education. All kept in shape
and lead by Wout Loeve (NLR) and Matthijs ten Kate (ubuntu-nl),
gratitude to all.

TV-Hilversum recorded the day, two journalist of computer magazine
"ComputerTotaal" were present, een reporter of the local paper the
Gooi&Eemlander did an interview, two students of the "Hogeschool van
Antwerpen" interviewed people for their schoolproject, a webcam was
present for all those who did'nt comeand a camera team recorded anything
for a program that will be set on the wiki. And many pictures were taken
for the same wiki.

Some pictures and a short report can be seen on
http://www.3dochters.nl/GRP27102007/album

Anyone that made the day as it was, earns a medal, but special thanks go
to the school, giving us the free location, Guy Duportial for bringing
the Tux family and his computersystems, Rob Koers for filming, Mark
Heester for the pictures, Valentijn Sessink for the computers and
special cd's and last but not least the ladies who put the cheese on all
these sanwitches.

I hope anyone had a great day,

Willem Hellinga