Re: Language of talks at LinuxTag
On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 12:54:34PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> beeing at Debconf in Oslo I just want to foreward some kind of critics
> to LinuxTag: Several people regard this event as really useless for people
> who do not understand German.
I suppose you are talking about the official LinuxTag conference programme?
One cannot do it right for everyone - more than 1/3 of the talks in the
official conference programme have been held in English, that is over 30
talks. Which talks are held in English and which in German depends very much
on what the speaker chooses. As LinuxTag takes place in Germany, naturally
many of the speakers come from Germany and like to give their talk in their
native language. The organizers have asked the speakers to give their talks
in English if possible (and when it makes sense regarding the topic - e.g.
discussing the effects of German law on free software development in Germany
does not make sense in English). Forcing speakers to use a foreign language
if they do not want to is a bad idea. Not everybody who can give a good talk
in his mother tongue can do so in a foreign language.
Besides that, the language problem has two sides - I have also had questions
from visitors who do not fluently speak and understand English why so many
interesting talks had to be in english...
Regards,
Karsten
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