DebConf 11 started

July 25th, 2011

DebConf 11, the annual Debian conference opened its doors today in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. As with previous conferences streams of most sessions will be made available, allowing contributors who couldn't attend the conference to still participate and send in questions and comments via specific IRC channels. The easiest way to do so is via the DebConf Watch website, which also contains several useful other tabs.

Yesterday the conference already commenced with the DebianDay, a conference day aimed at a wider, local audience. It featured talks on Understanding Debian, Debian in Enterprise: A Google Case Study and How to contribute and get involved. It was a great success, not only bringing the Debian Community nearer to local contributors, but also by catching the interest of the wider society as has never happened before.

So the opening ceremony was not only attended by Ćulibrk Predrag, General Manager of m:tel, the biggest local internet and phone provider, but also by Jasmin Komić, the Minister of Science and Technology and Aleksandar Džombić, the Prime Minister. In a moving speech Milorad Dodik, the President of Republika Srpska, who supported the idea of DebConf11 in Banja Luka for the last two years, told the audience that he is proud to see that Banja Luka and Republika Srpska succeeded to have DebConf11 here, even though there was some fierce competition. Adnan Hodzic, local organizer, is hoping that DebConf will attract the public's attention in Republika Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina about what GNU/Linux and Debian systems are.

DebConf will last until July 31 and feature a 78 session program (not including spontaneous adhoc sessions) which will include talks and workshops on Multiarch, Ports to new architectures, and better collaboration with derivative distributions, as well as an extensive social program. This year's conference is attended by over 400 participants from 50 countries.

The Debian Project would also like to thank the sponsors who made this conference possible:

About Debian

The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal operating system.

About DebConf

DebConf is the Debian Project's developer conference. In addition to a full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides an opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested people to meet in person and work together more closely. It has taken place annually since 2000 in locations as varied as Canada, Finland, and Mexico. More information about DebConf is available from the DebConf website.

More Information

More information about DebConf11 can be found on the conference website or by contacting the DebConf Global Press Team at <press@debconf.org>.